Metta likes...the world (part 2)

Juliet Stevenson in The Heretic at the Royal Court, 2011
photo Keith Pattison

Last time I wrote about what theatre can do to reduce it's own carbon footprint, but can it also help by doing making theatre, by telling stories?

There's been a plethora of climate-related plays recently - from Net Curtains production of One-Nineteen at the Arcola a few years ago to the Royal Court's recent production of The Heretic (with Metta's Honorary Patron Juliet Stevenson). But what do they achieve?

Metta likes...the world

Yup, the whole world. In fact we love it. And we want to look after it - in fact we want theatre in general to help look after it. We have an ethical policy at Metta that means we have to look out for both the natural and the human world around us - we need to minimise our environmental and social impact. There's a little bit more detail on our website, here.

We all know that theatre can change the world politically - for example, just look at the Belorussian regime's fear of the Belarus Free Theatre for proof of that, but what can it do to save the planet?