On a low hill overlooking Reykjavik's harbour the members of a small camera crew wrapped in many layers of winterwear are wrestling with the horizontal snow in an attempt to film a short comedy sketch. The set-up of the skit, one explains, involves "a bum, he lives in the park and he is trying to sell tickets at crazy high prices for the show".
The show in question is taking place in a nearby white building, and the joke turns on the fact that, three and a half years after what is known here simply as The Crash, Icelanders have learned the hard way that you can't, after all, value something worthless simply by naming your price, and then adding zeroes.
That's not to say that what is taking place inside the white building – Reykjavik's Culture House – is not, in its own way, a hot ticket.
In a smart wood-panelled former library on the first floor a special criminal court has been convened for the first time in the country's history. Its purpose is to try the former Icelandic prime minister Geir Haarde over the spectacular economic collapse in October 2008 which catastrophically bankrupted the small island nation.
Haarde, 60, is to date the only politician anywhere in the world to face criminal charges over the financial crisis. The charges, which he denies, include "serious neglect of his duties … in the face of major perils looming over Icelandic financial institutions and the state treasury, a danger he knew of, or should have known of".
If convicted he could face up to two years in prison.
