Putting a financial crash on stage
Business Daily
BBC
4.4 • 796 Ratings
🗓️ 19 December 2024
⏱️ 18 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
We explore the ongoing fascination of the Lehman Brothers story.
A play - The Lehman Trilogy - is currently being shown in London to five-star reviews.
It documents the rise and fall of the financial services firm, which filed for bankruptcy in 2008 - the largest insolvency in history, and considered a defining moment in the global financial crisis.
The play has been seen by half a million theatregoers globally - and now Business Daily has been to watch it too.
We speak to the cast, adapting playwright, and the audience about the story's appeal.
Produced and presented by Elizabeth Hotson
(Image: Howard W. Overshown performs the role of Emanuel Lehman during a media preview of The Lehman Trilogy at the Theatre Royal, Sydney, in February 2024)
Transcript
Click on a timestamp to play from that location
| 0:00.0 | I'm Elizabeth Hotson. Welcome to Business Daily from the BBC. On today's program, I'll be looking at how and why a play about the collapse of Lehman Brothers has become a massive hit. After all, banking's not the first thing you'd think of when planning a night at the theatre. |
| 0:17.6 | If someone had told me that you could even make a play out of this, out of the subject matter, |
| 0:21.7 | it probably would have surprised me. |
| 0:23.1 | But the effects of the collapse are still being felt, leaving many of us looking for answers. |
| 0:28.5 | When in 2008, those financial institutions began to fail and the impact was devastating. |
| 0:34.5 | I think we all wanted to know what was going on. The answer to that question |
| 0:39.2 | in the play begins 200 years ago. And there's the feeling that what happened back in 2008 |
| 0:45.8 | could easily be repeated. I think it's really quite relevant for now, I think, with what's |
| 0:51.2 | happening in the world and with this kind of boom and bust economy, it's still happening. |
| 0:56.5 | You'll be hearing all about that and much more in Business Daily from the BBC. |
| 1:10.8 | An epic family saga, full of intrigue, drama and visually arresting set design, exactly what you'd want from a night at the theatre. |
| 1:20.0 | But, and here's the surprising bit, the central subject of the play is the collapse of a financial services company. |
| 1:27.2 | Doesn't exactly sound like the plot to a play, but that is the central theme of the Lehman |
| 1:31.8 | trilogy. |
| 1:34.1 | Centering on the beginning, middle and eventual demise of the Lehman Brothers Bank, it was |
| 1:38.9 | originally written as an eight-hour epic by Italian playwright Stefano Messini. |
| 1:44.5 | It was adapted into a shorter version by English playwright Ben Power, who will be hearing from later. |
| 1:50.4 | Since 2018, it's had sellout runs in London, New York's Broadway, and now it's back in London, |
| 1:57.1 | and has been seen by an estimated half a million theatre goers. So how and why has it |
| 2:03.4 | kept audiences gripped for so long? Let's start by going back to 2008, to the part of the story |
| 2:10.1 | that most people have heard of. Lehman Brothers hit the headlines when the bank collapsed. |
| 2:15.6 | The reason for that collapse, to cut a very long story short, was partly due to the bank collapsed. The reason for that collapse, too, cut a very long story short, |
... |
Transcript will be available on the free plan in -56 days. Upgrade to see the full transcript now.
Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from BBC, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.
Generated transcripts are the property of BBC and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.
Copyright © Tapesearch 2025.