A slick Hampstead premiere probes venture capital, medical breakthroughs and the uneasy line between profit and purpose.
There are few tales of corporate hubris to match that of Theranos; how wide-eyed Elizabeth Holmes – now jailed – conned millions from seasoned investors with the promise of a pin-prick diagnosis that never worked.
It was a potent fable of utopian optimism and human greed.
ROI (Return on Investment) follows in that bloodline, but writer Aaron Loeb declares this a post-Theranos piece, not least because the world-changing medical advances of PreCure appear to work.
Loeb himself used to live in the San Francisco Bay area and is a gaming entrepreneur, so he tackles his subject – the hollow twang of venture capitalism – with an authentic curiosity.
The prospect of curing cancer and ending Alzheimer’s may hold the hope of legacy but – as grizzled veteran of the internet boom Paul Melrose declares – “It is never, ever bigger than the money.”
Impact v profit
He is mentoring his “work-daughter” and partner May Lee (precision engineered by Millicent Wong) and between them they represent different eras of the tech boom. May has a millennial sense of impact and purpose. Melrose (a charismatic and wry Lloyd Owen) just wants to win. He argues that “the only way to fix this world is to make it profitable to do so”.
PreCure is the brainchild of evangelical Willa McGovern (a wily Letty Thomas) who begins the piece fumbling a set of handwritten pitch cards but quickly has May and Melrose riding on the back of a billion-dollar unicorn.
The scene is set then for a generational battle, about values, about private funds and public health, about the wider purpose of capitalism. But the play fidgets: it doesn’t like these genre restrictions and wants more.
To that end, Willa reveals a much darker side.
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With a handbrake screech, she offers some radical views and indulges in some wild conspiracy theories that prove an existential challenge to the three-way relationship.
This reveal demands a leap of faith not only from May and Melrose but from the audience as well. We need to be assured Loeb knows where he’s going with this.
A hard turn
Truth be told, it’s unclear for a time.
Indeed, there is a degree of preposterous overreach in scenes where the threesome reveal dastardly truths about each other during a very public hearing before Congress.
But, ultimately, Loeb lands it, courtesy of a production that is confident, exuberant and packed with ideas. If high stakes corporate skulduggery is your thing, you’ll take it in your stride.
To assist, designer Rosie Elnile has created a slick set with digital backdrops and neat gadgetry, while director Chelsea Walker keeps the pace brisk.
The cast is accomplished, albeit working with characters that function largely as cyphers. The storytelling, however, supplies enough twists to match those of a corporate knife in the back.
ROI – Return on Investment runs at Hampstead Theatre Downstairs until 11 April 2026.
This review first appeared on The Spy In The Stalls.