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The Jewish Chronicle

Review: Greenland

February 3, 2011 14:09

By

John Nathan,

John Nathan

1 min read

You can't accuse the National of not practising what it preaches. The theatre has worked hard to reduce its carbon footprint, from installing low voltage lighting throughout the building, to fitting the loos with, er, movement detectors. So there is a sense with this climate change play, a collaboration between four writers - Moira Buffini, Matt Charman, Penelope Skinner and Jack Thorne - of being preached to by the converted.

Despite all the talent involved, including rising director Bijan Sheibani who was previously at the National with the harrowing Holocaust play, Our Class, the result is less than the sum of its parts.

With his cast of 15, Sheibani artfully juggles several narrative strands - including a teenage climate change protestor's attempts to halt work on a pipeline in Papua New Guinea and an Ed Miliband lieutenant (Lindsey Marshal) courting an environmental scientist (Peter McDonald) who is about to revealing his forecast of apocalyptic flood to the international climate summit in Copenhagen.

Meanwhile, the melting of Arctic ice results in a heart-stopping scene when a huge, almost convincing if slightly pantomimic polar bear, stalks a environmental researcher.