Quoting Guardian cartoonist Steve Bell and mentioning his daughter’s godmother, Brighton’s Green MP Caroline Lucas, author Andrew Simms couldn’t have appeared more stereotypically white, middle-class and liberal. Simms’ book, Cancel The Apocalypse, represents a similarly unashamed journey into left-wing thought.

Looking at possible exits from the world’s financial crisis, this sold-out show proved relevant if pointedly solution-less. Simms was engaging as he went into details on what his “Fantasy Economics” country, “Goodland”, would be like.

Adopting the same style as those ubiquitous football games where you pick and choose players from across the league, Simms highlighted experimental models from countries around the world. Simms’ utopia would mix Iceland’s punishment of corrupt bankers with Ecuador’s climate change policy and Cuba’s prevalence of small-scale farming, all led by the low-salaried Uruguayan President, José Mujica.

Simms had clearly done his research, providing detailed facts and figures arguing the case for each alternative economic model’s success. Still, this cherry-picking, patchwork approach came across as a somewhat naïve outpouring of idealistic hopes and dreams rather than an expert opinion.

But maybe that’s the point, as his quote from Welsh Marxist Raymond Williams suggests: “To be truly radical is to make hope possible rather than despair convincing.”