It’s precious rare to see a sympathetic stage portrayal of private finance. Sarah Burgess’s play is no exception. However, nor does it take the simplistic “megabucks = bad” line. Her tale of a private equity firm facing a crisis of investor confidence at the same time as an irresistible purchase presents itself is close to non-judgemental. It seems to suggest vaguely that money in itself is amoral, and our approach to its acquisition and disposal imbues it and us with morality or immorality. Even that, though, is far from spelt out, but left for the viewer to infer.

Moreover, Burgess tests us by refusing to flag her characters. The figure we might expect to identify with – the one we see first, arguing her case, and (to be frank) the only woman onstage – is rapidly revealed as the hawkish voice in the buyout, devoted to moving labour offshore and asset-stripping at the first opportunity. Her counterpart, who has found the prospect and more or less pledged to its CEO to preserve the company as is, is an insecure and venomous specimen. At times boss Rick seems almost sagacious and even-handed, until he spews out more abuse and faces flak for gutting another company whilst spending $1m on an engagement party with elephants (“Elephant! There was just one!”).

As Jenny, Hayley Atwell is (as she was in the underrated Marvel TV series Agent Carter) the sharpest knife in the box, but far less compassionate, perhaps slightly Aspergic; she often punctuates her pitches with “I apologise”, as if it is a response she has learned but does not understand. Tom Riley looks too smooth to be as truculent as his character Seth yet still brings it off, and Aidan McArdle makes Rick an occasionally thoughtful, often edgy bastard.

Anna Ledwich stages events on a set bare save for a glass desk and a couple of swivel chairs, with the hint of a figuratively significant maze of mirrors upstage. Where Burgess’s unflinching approach takes its toll, however, is in the humour. This is billed as a comedy, but it is almost entirely comedy of cruelty: of bitchery, sledging and downright insult. Without a character or perspective to engage with, we need humour that offers relief rather than enrolling us in the heartlessness.

Written for the Financial Times.