quantIn banking, risk is everything. Indeed, nothing is made or grown in these gargantuan organisations but risk, something The Quant is at constant pains to convey throughout its brisk but ironically benign one-man hour.

Upon entering the intimate Hill Street Solo Theatre, our guide Griffiths is already seated up front: a suavely suited trader engrossed in a newspaper as around him a dribble of electronica echoes. Having him here straight away is an odd choice, and one that robs his opening lecturing fury of an initial impact.

The Quant then is, for the most part, a presentation: we are new recruits to the second largest bank in the world and Griffiths is our mentor, here to help bridge the gap between our economic theoretical thinking and real life practice by exploring and elaborating on the concept of risk. He’s no doubt an engaging presence, and one who in the early exchanges stinks of trader floor rhetoric in his ability to relay endless banking jargon in an oddly captivating way. Part of this comes from his evident and almost geeky enthusiasm, a facet that soon makes more sense as Griffiths flashes back to his younger years before his swanky Whitechapel apartment.

These scenes, in which the harsh yellow lights fade to a reflective blue, are arguably the high point. Once a lonely physics-obsessed high achiever, he soon realises that a thesis in ‘Topics in Black Hole Physics’ is all but useless and sets off on a new economic path. It is bankers rather than physicists that can now change the world, he states – an interesting idea that I wish was developed more within The Quant.

With a compelling central performance and a subject matter richly enlightened by its delivery, The Quant is certainly worth the time of anyone interested in the mechanics of risk and the hidden horrors of banking.

The Quant is at Hill Street Solo Theatre (Venue 41) until 24 August. For more information and tickets visit the Edinburgh Fringe website.