Sigourney Weaver’s West End play interrupted by Just Stop Oil protest
A West End performance of Sigourney Weaver’s troubled production of The Tempest has been interrupted by a pair of Just Stop Oil protesters.
During the January 27th performance of the classic Shakespeare play, a male and female protester appeared on stage at the Theatre Royal Drury Lane. They launched a confetti canon and held an orange banner reading, “Over 1.5 degrees is a global shipwreck.”
This is both a reference to the play, which features a sinking ship, and a nod to the recent announcement that 2024 was the hottest year on record across the globe. It was the first full year in which the average temperature exceeded 1.5 degrees.
Weaver and her scene partner were escorted from the stage by theatre staff, while the protesters were booed by one portion of the audience and cheered by another. They were on stage for less than a minute in total.
In a statement, one of the protesters, Hayley Walsh, a 42-year-old lecturer from Nottingham, said she worries about the world in store for her children if no action is taken. She noted, “I can’t sleepwalk them into a future of food shortages, life-threatening storms, and wars for resources. Years of writing to MPs, going on marches, and teaching my students to be more sustainable haven’t seen the urgent change needed.”
Walsh’s colleague, Richard Weir, a 60-year-old mechanical engineer from Tyneside, also said, “We’re already seeing the damage this crisis is doing to crops, homes and entire neighbourhoods. Unless we come together and demand a move away from fossil fuels by 2030, we will go the same way as manufacturing in the UK.”
The incident was simply the latest setback faced by Weaver and director Jamie Lloyd’s production of The Tempest, which marked the star’s debut in the West End. It has already had its ticket prices slashed after early performances were met with negative reviews, with most reserving particular criticism for Weaver’s portrayal of the magician Prospero.
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