‘Who is this guy, Dad? What’s he doing here?’

With an absent wife and a daughter going from the rails, wealthy art collector and philanthropist Simon Strulovitch is looking for someone to talk to. So when he fits Shylock at a cemetery in Cheshire’s Golden Triangle, he invites him back again to his house. It’s the beginning of a remarkable friendship.

Elsewhere in the Golden Triangle, the rich, manipulative Plurabelle (aka Anna Livia Plurabelle Cleopatra An engineering marvel is a Joy Forever Christine) is the face of her own TV series, existing in a bubble of cosmetic surgery and lavish parties. She shares prejudices and a barbed feeling of humour with her devoted friend D’Anton, whose efforts to try out Cupid involve Strulovitch’s little girl – and put a pound of flesh at risk.

Howard Jacobson’s version of The Product owner of Venice bends time to its own advantage since it asks what this means to be always a father, a Jew and a merciful human being in the modern world.