Star comment: This is one show with no winners

Or, in this particular local authority version, a millionaire many times over, because that is the sort of figure we are talking about to get the council’s finances straight.

There are four answers to choose from. Two are positive. One is negative. And the fourth will get you by – but store up trouble for the future.

The challenges for the future have been laid before councillors by the finance chief James Walton.

Unless they do something, the council is heading for a £5.061 million overspend by the end of March 2018 – that’s when the 2017/18 financial year draws to a close.

But if they do do something, they could trim the overspend to £428,000. That doesn’t sound too bad, does it?

However, it is tip of the iceberg territory. Making the figures look a bit better over one year will not solve the underlying problem, which is that year on year, the funding gap is expected to grow by £6 million a year, so in 2022/23 it will be a mind-boggling £59 million. This is the scale of the challenge facing the council. Other councils, including Telford & Wrekin and Powys, are grappling with similar difficult decisions.

You will be curious about the positive answers. They are innovation and raising income. At which a great question mark bubble appears. How exactly would this positive approach work in practice? Would it mean flogging things off or putting up charges?

The negative answer is to cut services. This approach is naturally controversial and unpopular. Down the years the ‘traditional’ council method has been to reduce library opening hours or close them. But now there are hardly any libraries left to close. The easy – it can only be a crude relative term in the context – solutions are no longer available and the knife is hovering over core services.

The final of the four answers is to raid reserves, which faces the same problem as cutting services. Once the money has gone from the piggy bank, it won’t be there next time you start shaking the tin, so it can only be regarded as a short-term measure to get the council through a crisis which is obviously going to continue for some years.

As the tension mounts and the dramatic music plays, there is one thing the council should do, and that is call a friend – the Shropshire public, who are going to be affected by whatever answer is chosen, and should at least be properly consulted.