Writer: Madeline Whitby
Director: Madison Cole
Elements of Don’t Look Up and WALL-E coalesce in this poignant drama around four characters stranded in a Thai beach resort. They’re facing annihilation by an impending asteroid strike, while a space station filled with escaping elites – the Arc – orbits above them.
SUNLAND was inspired by a conversation between writer Madeline Whitby and her mother about whether or not to have children in an era of existential crisis. It’s a contemplative reflection on reaching adulthood and maintaining loving relationships amid the spiralling fears generated by climate devastation and wealth inequality, while keeping hope alive.
The play begins with a spare but evocative set: a bloodied sack of rice on an audibly tropical beach. Excellent use is made of the soundtrack (courtesy of Dan Sinclair and Isaiah James-Mitchell) – featuring NASA-type control room dialogue, crashing waves, buzzing insects, overheard whispers, dramatic chords and plaintive cries – to convey the paranoid, sweltering scene. Searing lighting – bright on the beach, swirlingly bloody between acts – accentuates the tension.
Shockingly, SUNLAND’s action commences with the failing, gasping suicide of a local girl, discovered on the beach by central characters Charlie and Bo. Realising she can’t be helped, Bo decides to carry out a mercy killing with Charlie’s tacit approval. The implications of this confronting act resonate throughout the piece.
The pair is joined by Brits abroad Fran and Yael, whose Thai holiday has taken an apocalyptic turn with the impending asteroid strike, certain, as Bo points out, to the tune of 99.4%.
The two ‘couples’ – the extent of their alliances is revealed as the play progresses – rail at the oligarchic Arc, argue about how best to spend their short remaining time and mull over the validity of remaining alive and reproducing. Which might sound depressing, but it’s done with wit – “I had a pension pot saved.” “Bad luck!” – and the abuse they hurl Arc-wards is highly amusing and cathartic: “Who’s cleaning the bogs?”
Everyone wants more from each other; there just doesn’t seem time to obtain it.
Lily Walker as Charlie, resembling a combatant in army camo hues, brings short-fused, furious defiance to every interaction. Slight but potent – like Sigourney Weaver’s Ripley in Alien 3 – she’s up to here with her life, the state of the world and her relationship with fellow scholarship kid Bo, with whom she’s been not so much thrown together as centrifuged. Everything is bleak to her, and she declares she’d consider suicide.
Charlie’s trans partner Bo, in a measured performance by Isaiah James-Mitchell, is kind, considerate and reluctant to express anger. Solid, dependable and likeable, with physical heft, they’re the one the others look to when there are difficult decisions and tasks that need carrying out.
Yael, played with bright enthusiasm by Rebecca Goddard, is the peacemaker in the group, always attempting to bring perspective, balance and serenity. As aggrieved as the rest at the devastation wrought on humanity and the Earth, she spreads as much optimism as she can muster.
Names have weighted significance in this production. Yael explains she’s called after an Old Testament wife glorified for the opportunistic killing of a military opponent, raising questions around justifiable murder, and whether women can be as bloodthirsty as men. Charlie reveals that she was named after her mother’s sister, Charlotte, who died as a child: a lot to live up to.
Gigi Downey as Fran is forthright, loyal and caring, torn more than most by the conundrum of whether or not to raise children on an increasingly inhospitable planet. Surprisingly forgiving to Bo in the aftermath of the mercy killing, it becomes clear that she’s siding with them because she needs their expertise to resolve a pressing dilemma. Fran has decided that she wants to have the child that’s been in her belly for three months, the result of a liaison with a grunting Aussie, “coat hangered out”.
The characters fall in and out with each other as details of their backgrounds, agendas and motives unfurl. There’s jealousy at their iniquitous Arc exclusion, and appreciation at the luxury of their resort surroundings. The rage at the oligarch escapees becomes more focused, with one of the play’s most stirring lines delivered by mild-mannered Yael: “You made it so that everything we went through didn’t matter.”
The conclusion is clever and satisfying, but just a little too pat: the issues raised here could never be so neatly settled.
Stepping into SUNLAND from the ‘new normal’ heat of this scorching London summer gives the torrid beach setting extra impact: maybe using swelter as a doom device rather than the well-worn asteroid might make the piece more relatable. But perhaps the slow burn approach would be too drawn out for an hour-long play, possibly requiring less-than-compelling discussion around viable solutions.
Many issues in this piece have been aired before, but it’s enlightening and moving to hear them reworked and voiced by younger generations. And the depressing themes are, thankfully, leavened with much sweary humour. As a howl from the sector of society most tormented by prevailing threats – those in the midst of their reproductive years – SUNLAND is affecting and thought-provoking, with real impact, immediacy and urgency.
Runs until 20 July 2025 and then 28-30 July, Lion & Unicorn Theatre
Bitesize Festival runs until 3 August 2025
