Taking the piss out of bankers, itself, and the occasional member of the audience, The Miser by Molière is a riotous play which had members of the audience in fits of giggles. It is a satirical play of obsession with money, love, authority and status. Andy Gray plays the miser, Harpingon, and controls the stage with a fearsomely funny performance. He is brilliantly supported by Michael Condron, as Jack, Quimph and Carlyle,as well as Julie Maxwell, Paul Boyd and Richard Clements.

BY BEN  FINCH

After a funny start, the play builds to an excellent second half as Harpingon’s children try to beg, borrow or steal his money and fall in love. Harpingon turns out to be an apt pun as he greatly enjoys the sound of his own voice. The boundaries of the stage are ignored with characters roaming around and interacting with the audience. However, this led to a heckler shouting out during Harpingon’s final speech. She was hilarious though and no-one seemed to mind.

The play has been relocated to Belfast and achieves this through witty references to areas of the city, Northern Ireland and the inability of various Scottish characters to understand the Northern Irish accent. While retaining some of the more pretentious language of the seventeenth century, a majority of the dialogue has been updated to be understandable to a contemporary audience allowing a self-aware critique of the play itself to take place.

Despite a first half that can seem slow at times, with some jokes missing their targets, The Miser is a very funny and relevant production, that manages to highlight the absurdities of obsession and the banking system.

The Miser runs at Elmwood Hall until 9 July 2010