Getting Rich in the Recession: the Man Who Buys Anything

Steve Elwis is, by his own admission, ‘happy to gain from other people’s misfortune’. This may not make him a nice man, but it at least makes him an honest one. Elwis’s company, Virrgo, is the ultimate bottom-feeder, reconstituting the discernment of the specialist small retailer into the pile-it-high, sell-it-cheap free-for-all of the pound shop.

It’s the conduit through which the shitty detritus of late capitalism makes its way into the gutter. And Elwis can afford his candour: his array of squidgy toys, art and craft tat, cheap glassware, cookery books and England flags has made him a rich man. This documentary is often queasy viewing; Elwis, by definition, profits from the failures and disappointments of others and watching him make his derisory offers for the physical remains of various crumbled dreams is pretty soul-destroying.

But then, that’s modern, free-market economics: more losers than winners, banality triumphing over idealism and the race to the bottom becoming the only game in town. Not cheerful viewing then, but sometimes the truth hurts.