Showing @ Traverse Theatre, Thu 20 & Fri 21 Sep @ 19:30then touring

If all theatre by nature is overtly political, then Rapture Theatre’s revival of Mike Cullen’s The Collection is not only political but also prophetic. As loan sharks flourish while the UK struggles to recover from the global financial crisis, Michael Emans’ production brings this 1995 text into the reality of austerity, poverty and exploitation that continues in modern Britain.

Taking place at a debt recovery agency somewhere in Scotland, The Collection follows Joe (David Tarkenter), new boy Billy (Tam Dean Burn) and Bob (Jimmy Chisholm), as they attempt to commandeer what little money their clients have left. But Bob is troubled by a client’s recent death, and as he attempts to help Elena (Pauline Turner) out of debt, his co-workers begin to plan his downfall.

Cullen’s The Collection was inspired by his memories of working for a debt collection agency in the 1980s. Bringing together themes of poverty, deception, betrayal, pride and greed, what’s surprising about this piece is that in the midst of all these relevant and important themes is a haunting. Not in the traditional sense, such as a spooky house or a disturbed poltergeist, instead it’s a haunting of the mind. Guilt, such as the guilt that Bob deals with all day, every day is the real restless spirit, the true message of the play.

Expertly performed by Chisholm, Tarkenter, Burn and Turner, Cullen’s play is a powerful and unnerving reminder of just what debt can and does do to people, and specifically, what it does to those that work in the industry. People are disposable, yet money is not. Dark and frightening in places but utterly watchable, The Collection is a timeless yet damning examination of greed and exploitation, that is more relevant now than when it was first written in the 1990s.

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