Note: No longer in repertoire!

Juha Jokela’s new comedy Let’s Play Business takes a wickedly funny look at the challenges of modern working life. Insightful and at times utterly absurd, this comedy surprises, delights and captures the zeitgeist like a knobbly club striking a cardboard box – in other words, it leaves a mark.

The story takes place at HX, a Finnish project consultancy whose authoritarian CEO, Raimo Hemming, has recently retired.

The employees of HX, who call themselves “HXers”, are trying to adjust to life after their charismatic but highly controversial figurehead. Hemming’s allies, such as Hannu (Santeri Kinnunen), and the victims of his whims, such as Ressu (Sanna-June Hyde), must now coexist in the same open-plan office reality.

Coming to terms with the scars left by their former boss is particularly at odds with new CEO
Artturi’s (Martti Manninen) high-flying ideas about workplace culture, which involve seeking creativity in business and, when necessary, recharging through dance.

Let’s Play Business offers a stylish and sophisticated satire of leadership, the longing for a strong leader and the search for meaning at work.

Or rather, it would…

…if, through some strange twist of fate, the story had not been entrusted to a troupe of actors whose artistic director (Wanda Dubiel) is not exactly playing by the agreed rules. Equality, self-awareness, moderation and critical reflection on her own actions are not among her strengths.

The corporate story is consequently accompanied by an ever-escalating, uncontrollable chaos in which roles are swapped on the fly and sets come crashing down. Above all, it is the theatre’s finance manager’s (Jan-Christian Söderholm) worst nightmare: “It looked cheap. It’ll be anything but. The emotional cost is incalculable.”

Expect sparkling dialogue, incisive observations on our times and riotous physical comedy.

View the programme