Writer: Nicole Latchana
Director: Gavin Joseph
The personal is political in Tara Theatre’s likeable climate change play, where seven eco-activists attempt to save the world from a community centre in South London’s Earlsfield. However, important discussions about Shell’s abysmal record in protecting the environment are overshadowed by some broad comedy and more general ideas about found families.
Kemi finds herself the leader of a local group of environmental campaigners when Geoff doesn’t turn up for their regular weekly meeting. She wants to protest peacefully and legally, but Mikel and new member Gagan have more radical ideas and talk of kidnapping Shell executives and burning down bulldozers. Meanwhile, Bianca just wants the meeting room to store items for the food bank she runs.
The first act tries to give us some background on each character, but as there are seven of them, the details provided are thin. Kemi is single and lives on her own, while unemployed Mikel lives with his brother Ayman, who works for Shell. Gagan, of Indian descent, is an accidental member of the group; she’d signed up for the How To Become A Millionaire In A Year class next door, but after watching videos of mudslides in India, she finds herself the most vocal in calling for direct action. Desmond has a son, and so doesn’t want to get arrested, and Noor suffers from panic attacks. We learn very little about Bianca.
The comedy in Nicole Latchana’s play mostly comes from Gagan (excellently played by Gurjot Dhaliwal), who moves from ditzy fantasist to full-on warrior. Mikel (a convincing Usmaan Khan) wants a revolution, but he’s mainly hot air. His brother Ayman (an understated performance from Adil Rehman) is the most complex of them all as he tries to balance his beliefs with his well-paying job. Tinuola Ibrahim’s Kemi is heartbreakingly lonely.
Character development isn’t helped by the choppy, short scenes which make up Act Two, where the campaigners now protest on a green space that is earmarked to be destroyed to make way for apartments. They worry that, as Black and Brown protestors, they will be treated more like terrorists by the media and the police. As they bicker and bond, the green issues are almost forgotten, and the play becomes more of an examination of friendship, both permanent and ephemeral.
Gavin Joseph’s direction is sprightly, but he may want to move some of the scenes where the actors are sitting on the floor to the back of the stage if he wants more than the front row to see their faces. And Adil Rehman is often concealed in a corner where hardly anyone can see him. Alys Whitehead’s ominous red box sinking slowly into the playing space is a striking image of the disaster that may come at the end of the Anthropocene.
Runs until 19 April 2025
The Reviews Hub Score
Personal is Political
