I noticed today, that yesterday marked the beginning of the last week of the Greenland at the National Theatre, London. I went to see it last month with friends, and afterwards not one of them had a good thing to say about it!

What’s all the fuss NOT about?

Greenland is billed as a new piece of theatre, exploring the big questions around climate change with the National Theatre tasking various writers to investigate the issue. They spent six months interviewing people from the worlds of science, politics, business and philosophy, in the hope of better understanding the planet. Greenland is several separate stories together, which are performed by a NT company.

My ‘View from the Bottom’…

Putting the views of my friends to one side, Greenland wasn’t a great production – they would say this is an understatement! Two hours of listening to political speeches without an interval, was too much even for me. After half an hour or so, I lost concentration. Sadly, there was nothing theatrical about it, it was just a couple of hours of being lectured at. It being billed as a ‘play’, could be misleading. That said, I did pick up some points about the causes of climate change which were important, although nothing I couldn’t have looked up on Wikipedia! The different stories didn’t link well together and were confusing. There was just too much happening on stage at once, like the girl ‘swinging’ about in mid-air in a shopping trolley. At times, the lighting and props were more powerful than the performances, which shouldn’t be the case.

Max rating: 1/5 * (for the life-size Polar Bear coming on stage!)

This has been a ‘first’ theatre review by me, Max.

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© 2011 Kevin Maxwell Film, Media & Performance – Published by My Mum