Everything Must Go at the Soho Theatre

It's taken the Soho Theatre about two weeks to knock this together – this, their rapid response to the current recession and its impact on everyday lives.

To be honest, it doesn't feel all that rapid. After all, the recession has been going for a lot more than two weeks, but then, as one character here says: it must be difficult to talk about a thing during a thing. So, perhaps by biding its time, the Soho Theatre has gained some perspective on the recession that has been running for long enough to become (the much-bandied about) the current economic climate.

Soho Theatre has responded with a series of short, new pieces of writing on the theme of economic hardship, which echo the expected themes of inevitable poverty, greed and global fear, as well as less expected ones, like generations-old exploitation and latent racism in the face of immigrant workers. Having only had two weeks, some of them feel a tad under-rehearsed, and a lot of the writing can be tightened, but these are all very good examples of budget theatre done on a small scale ('basement theatre' as the publicity calls it). They're almost scratch performances, and I can't help seeing a possible recession-busting option for theatre being displayed here. On the downside for the Soho, only the front two rows of their (freezing cold) auditorium were on sale, so they won't quite be raking it in.

With eleven pieces to perform, naturally some will be stronger than others. Megan Barker's Anaphylactic is a dark, Roald Dahl-esque tales of bees, terror, sex and freedom, and while the recession's influence is hardly at the forefront, it is crucial in starting the devious plot. Lara Pulver is gripping, sensuous and desperate in what is almost a one-woman show.

But Everything Must Go is better in the second half, with its hit-and-miss nature finding a hit with the homespun kitsch of Marisa Carnesky's House of Knives, a stagily cute fairytale with knife-based magic tricks and table dancing. The first half has a bit of a miss in Maxwell Golden's title piece – Everything Must Go – an underpowered performance of a quasi-rap that Golden hasn't put his heart into...a shame, as the lyrics have great potential, and previous performances of his have been much more energetic and highly-charged.

There's even a pair of songs written by Steve Thompson, about greedy bankers chucking about money they know can't be repaid. It's fun, as well as a brilliant evocation of the fear building in the world. But it goes for an obvious target (bankers, grr) and Anything You Can Do (by Bole Agbaje) has a quick dig at MPs' expenses...easy. What's more difficult and challenging is Will Eno's closing piece, The Train is Leaving the Station, which undermines typical it-was-the-bankers'-fault arguments, blaming the recession instead on people being people.

Eno offers no solutions, nor do any of these plays, but they – and Eno especially – humanise the causes, and make them easier to understand.

Other theatre-based responses to the recession are covered by Lyn Gardner here.