The Insider ****

Know thyself.” This hubris-fuelled throwaway snippet of pop psychology is proffered by our protagonist’s boss. It does come from the Oracle of Delphi, though, so there may be something to it.

Referred to as the ‘CumEx-Files’, Teater Katapult’s The Insider casts a light upon a £50 billion tax fraud, spanning multiple countries, involving international banks, many of which are household names. The scheme hinged on the premise that the same tax refunds could be claimed multiple times. It connected a network of traders, accountants, and lawyers. The root cause was, as ever, greed, but the fraud was facilitated by Thatcher’s 1986 ‘Big Bang’ city revolution and the sheer complexity of cross-border tax equalisation systems.

The house of cards crumbled when investigators began to dig, and our story centres on a mid-level corporate lawyer, heavily implicated in the scam, who turns whistleblower.

This is an immersive show, innovatively directed by Johan Sarauw. The audience is required to don a set of headphones to hear our unnamed protagonist (Christoffer Hvidberg Rønje) interacting with a series of investigators, colleagues, contacts, and family. The only live voice is that of Rønje, who, until the final moments, is encased in a glass-panelled structure, depicting a corporate office, investigation room, and—stunningly—a club rave. The opaque nature of the CumEx scheme is distilled by Rønje using a white pen on the glass.

The production leads us from the protagonist being initially approached to join the network by his boss, to his subsequent attempts at recruiting others, and then to his volte-face and decision to turn evidence. The complexity and audacity of the scheme, as it unravels, takes your breath away.

The impact on the protagonist is depicted iteratively. As we enter, he is in the glass office, suggestive of a cage. He appears to be trying to keep a lid on myriad emotions: nervousness, anticipation, and apprehension, as he non-verbally conveys the seriousness of the events to be revealed.

The mental toll is clearly onerous. While he was initially seduced by obscene financial rewards and perhaps power, his family life has suffered. Now that he is cooperating, the relentless and detailed investigation grinds on.

Rønje’s performance is startling. With no physically present co-performers to push against within the space, he conveys his inner turbulence viscerally and physically. The effect of the headphones is that we feel we are inside his head as we witness his disintegration. The denouement, in which he removes himself from the kaleidoscopic fishbowl, is chilling.

“Know thyself.” Probably increasingly, he does not; or if he does, he doesn’t like what he sees.