The Price of Everything

As a performance lecture, The Price of Everything is “more culturally valuable, but less enjoyable, than a piece of theatre,” according to creator Daniel Bye. And perhaps he's right: gone is the spectator’s ability to simply sit back and immerse themselves in the drama onstage, and in its place, an impulse to internally question the information we are given. Putting an exact monetary figure on things that play a role in our day to day lives, such as a pint of milk (51p) or our bone marrow (£13.8m), this is a thoughtful hour which challenges how we ascertain the value of all we encounter.

The nub of the piece concerns the fictional tale of Bye’s attempts at random acts of kindness, and the ways in which society might be reshaped if this selflessness caught on. But here it begins to feel somewhat derivative, namely of Danny Wallace’s 2002 'Join Me' initiative, where the writer/comedian asked for people who were willing to perform good deeds and inform him of how their selflessness prevailed. Bye’s closing speech, in which he asks a random audience member to take an envelope containing £20 and use it to treat a stranger, seems virtually indistinguishable.

The show's premise is certainly interesting, but it doesn’t feel provocative enough in its current form. Indeed, the best measure of its influence is how many people bothered to return their empty glasses (of complimentary milk bought by Bye) after the show had ended. Judging by the number left strewn over seats as everyone filed out, it appears the piece makes for thought-provoking, but ultimately ineffectual, viewing.