The Fortune Club
Tricycle

A combination of greed and social injustice sees a group of old friends fall on hard times.
The question that faces the frequenters of the Fortune Club, a crumbling bar in the East End, is whether it is better to beg or steal? Or so the flier leads us to believe.
A fundamental problem with this play is that its principal question remains unanswered. Indeed, the whole play, which manages to simultaneously champion and condemn avarice, struggles to find any coherency whatsoever.
One answer to the beg/steal question might be that it’s okay to steal from the rich but not from the poor. But any Robin Hood-style aspirations of the redistribution of wealth are scuppered almost immediately by the characters’ materialism.
The characters are a lively bunch of second/third-generation Indian friends, released from the shackles of ancient custom, and enjoying the London sub-culture of recreational drugs and dance music.
An intoxicated new year’s celebration brings about a plan to rip-off the rich and famous via an outlandish credit card scam.
Fortune brings about misfortune as expected – it fractures relationships and reveals the worst in all concerned. Gucci enthusiast Renu (Paven Virk), derides Priya (Natalia Campbell), for donating to Amnesty International and Greenpeace.
As the inevitable “step-too-far” approaches – an impersonation of the prince of Brunei and a £10 million suitcase of diamonds – the audience awaits their timely demise. But no such tragedy ensues and the bungling fraudsters get away with it. Eventually, it is laziness, rather than begging or stealing, that suffers the wrath of writer/director Dolly Dhingra.
Likeable, laid-back Tink (Anil Desai) fails to follow the plan to the hilt and seriously jeopardises his friends’ liberty. Unable to live with his guilt, Tint shoots himself. Although the suicide comes as quite a surprise to the audience, its impact on this confused story is negligible.
But perhaps to look for a moral is to miss the point. The Fortune Club scrutinises society from a different perspective, celebrating a spirit of defiance and inventiveness that the director experienced growing up as a working class kid in the East End.
Whether Dolly Dhingra thinks stealing is better than begging, we shall never know. But perhaps she would be more forgiving if it was done creatively.

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Until April 2