Making a drama out of a crisis

The climate emergency was long considered too grim for stage or screen, but a cloudburst of recent shows suggests the weather may be changing on that

- By Oliver Milman

Despite (or perhaps because of) its overwhelming awfulness, the climate crisis has been oddly underrepresented on stage and screen. Humanity's greatest challenge has often been deemed too much of a downer, too complex or too dull a topic to spawn shows and movies.

A burst of recent climate-themed cultural output, however, suggests this may be changing. Weather Girl, a one-woman play about the unravelling of a TV meteorologist who can no longer bear to gloss over climate breakdown, has just closed in New York City to upbeat reviews.

Another production called Kyoto, an unexpectedly engaging romp through the saga of international climate talks, is set to open in New York after getting positive attention in the UK, while a musical, The Pelican, centred on a climate crisis-ravaged Florida, is in the works.

And Netflix recently brought the issue to screens via the miniseries Families Like Ours, which depicts the evacuation of Denmark due to sea level rise. Weather Girl could soon be turned into a Netflix series, too.

"This is a moment when something is happening and changing" in the telling of climate stories, according to Joe Robertson, who co-wrote Kyoto with Joe Murphy. Robertson said it was "completely understandable" to dwell upon apocalyptic themes when tackling the climate crisis but "that storytelling process with that tone doesn't seem to be landing with audiences".

"We wanted something that would lean into the complications of the climate discussion, and empower audiences to have their own view."