Last Updated on September 30, 2026
The Cost of Happiness
4.0 out of 5.0 starsLast night saw the world premiere of James Graham’s new play The Standard of Living at the Theatre Royal Haymarket. It tells the story of superstar economist John Maynard Keynes, a man whose achievements in his field would be extraordinary enough, but whose personal life was intertwined with that of the radical artists in the Bloomsbury Group, creating an extraordinary carapace of artistic influence on a career spent working in the dryness of economics both in the Treasury and at King’s, Cambridge.
Graham has become the nation’s pre-eminent modern historian, chronicling major political and social events, carving out the national narrative through drama. Dear England, first a play then a 4-part TV series both starring Joseph Fiennes as erstwhile England football manager Gareth Southgate, was a state-of-the-nation play that touched on politics, racism and national identity.
The Standard of Living can be seen as a companion piece to Dear England. Both plays are centred around a series of discourses as the nerdy lead tries to carve out a better path for the country, a path defined by humane principles. Both plays run on a linear narrative and are infused with a kinetic energy. In Dear England, it is footballing set pieces that energise the drama; in The Standard of Living there is incendiary dancing from Royal Ballet principal Natalia Osipova as Russian ballerina Lydia Lopokova, who became Keynes’ wife, but it is economic theories that are being kicked about.
Rory Kinnear stars as John Maynard Keynes, emphasising the Pooterish and establishment exterior of what was a resolutely anti-establishment inner life. Keynes had affairs with artist Duncan Grant and critic Lytton Strachey from the Bloomsbury group as well as with many other men whilst maintaining a ledger of his conquests. His intellectual brilliance opened the doors to establishment portals that might have remained closed to a lesser brain. Both the play and Kinnear’s portrayal give a picture of a man comfortable in his own skin, seamlessly traversing the lines between picking up rough trade in a gent’s loo and the forbidding portals of the Treasury set up to defend the prevailing laissez-faire approach to economics.
The play follows Keynes’ story from his critique of the post-First World War settlement in his seminal tome The Economic Consequences of the Peace, his arguments in favour of public spending in a recession achieved through borrowing in The Means to Prosperity, and his macroeconomic bible The General Theory in 1936. He was heavily involved in the post-Second World War Bretton Woods conference that led to the foundation of the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund. Post-war, his achievements included the setting up of the Cambridge Arts Theatre and the foundation of the Arts Council. Kinnear articulates the economics with clarity, with Graham’s words always returning the argument to Keynes’ central question, “What Is a Good Life?”
The economic arguments are mostly played out in a series of set pieces with Laurie Kynaston in the role of Austrian economist and free market proselytiser Friedrich Hayek. Hayek, who provided economic ballast to Margaret Thatcher’s project to privatise Britain, was Keynes’ rival in garnering the political favour that would allow economic theories to be implemented and tested. If some of the scenes feel a bit clunky as the arguments are played out between the two theorists, there is a disarming fondness between the two characters built out of respect.
With his queer hinterland, aesthetic approach to economics, as well as a capacity to work the stock market successfully, Keynes was a good fit for the incestuous Bloomsbury set whom he bankrolled and housed. The play does a good job of bringing to life each of the key characters, even if they are sometimes only vignettes. Thomas Flynn’s Duncan Grant is languidly foppish but also good-hearted. Pip Carter brings out the self-loathing and jealous aspects of critic Lytton Strachey. Agatha Enecio is quiet and intense as artist Dora Carrington, and Naomi Frederick is waspish and full of insight as the depressive writer Virginia Woolf.
It is Natalia Osipova’s performance as Lydia Lopokova that is central to the play’s success, and it’s difficult to think of anyone else who could be cast in the part. Her ballet dancing is glorious, conjuring up the wild spirit of the Ballets Russes as she embodies Diaghilev’s Firebird, but she is as happy tangoing and jitterbugging across the stage. She can also act, disrupting the snobbish Bohemianism of the Bloomsbury clique with her bluntness and joie de vivre. It’s a terrific performance that counterpoints the stuffy economics and the solipsistic upper middle-class neuroses of the Bloomsbury set.
Graham’s writing is always infused with humour, and there are some good jokes that keep the production bouncing along. Nicholas Hytner’s direction is crisp and character-led, and the set design by Bob Crowley is another star of the show. Scenes are linked with artworks and historical video being projected onto moving panels, which create context and texture to flesh out the economics.
John Maynard Keynes was a complicated man and some of his beliefs, specifically on eugenics, are no longer regarded as acceptable. The play shines a light on his importance as an economist, as an advocate for the arts, and as a bulwark against extremism on the left and the right, a pertinent issue today. A play with a narrower focus might have given us more emotional insight into the man, but Graham is all about the grand sweep of ideas. It’s a satisfying and enlightening night of theatre.
Theatre Royal Haymarket
18 Suffolk Street, London, SW1Y 4HT
21 September to 12 December 2026
Tickets from £25
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