The Enron corporation took 16 years to grow from a $10 million business into one worth $70 billion. It took 24 days to go bankrupt in 2001, when its smoke and mirrors operation was exposed.

Its chairman, chief financial officer and president were jailed for fraud.

They way they ran the business was immoral, unethical ­- and brilliant.

This is what comes across in Lucy Prebble¹s play with music. It has dynamism, humour energy and power, seductive power in making financial deception sound so clever it has to be admired.

Except that the reality of this white collar crime was that 20,000 employees lost jobs, income and pensions because they were encouraged to invest in worthless shares, being told they were investing in themselves.

The start was delayed on Tuesday night because of technical problems. And the set heaved with technology, video, beasts with red glowing eyes, a stock market wall and lights galore.

The most brilliant and therefore the most culpable of all the crooked financiers was Jeff Skilling, played by Corey Johnson. He made us believe he believed he was creating a new world.

He was given his head by Ken Lay, (Clive Francis), a businessman with a rather more old fashioned view of the world but totally dazzled by the dollars Skilling raked in.

Andy Fastow (Paul Chahidi) was the man who knew how to make debts disappear, and even look like assets.

Sara Stewart was a strong player as Claudia Roe who was ruthless but not without scruples and was forced out of the company because of them.

It is a fascinating portrait of financial business on a huge scale and cleverly explained with the use of models and images as well as words.

It is very slick and funny as well as making a serious point about fraud, deception and gullibility on a grand scale.

The audibility was sometimes impaired by music and deliberate babble from the stock market floor.

It's in Bath until Saturday ­- catch it if you can get a ticket.