Don’t Stop Thinking About Tomorrow is available on Chickenshed’s YouTube channel.
This vibrant show, featuring Chickenshed’s trademark cast of hundreds won the 2019 Off West End Award (Offie) for the best production for young people of 13-plus.
Conceived and directed by Chickenshed’s artistic director Lou Stein, the show consists of a series of six large-scale, moving scenes relating to climate change. The emphasis is on human stories rather than remote statistics.
It was filmed at the time although there was no intention of making the film public. As things have turned out, it’s good to see it having a new lease of life on YouTube as part of Chickenshed’s response to the challenge of keeping live theatre alive during the Coronavirus pandemic.
The message unfolds through the eyes of a fictional installation artist, photographer and video artist with a research explorer’s instinct.
Oscar Buhari (played by Ashley Driver) grew up in the industrial North of England in the shadow of tall industrial chimneys belching out toxic carbons and smoke.
The show is Buhari’s performance installation which both documents various approaches to positive solutions of the effects of climate change and asks us all to take part in making small steps to change the destructive path we are on.
His monologues between scenes (written by Stein) are an attempt to unify the piece although it remains pretty episodic as we move from the horror of New Orleans and Hurricane Katrina to the agony of a future society in which rations are incrementally cut until there is no water for anything but drinking.
The most powerful moment for me is a setting of John Donne’s poem ‘Batter My Heart’, sung by a solo female voice in a rich echoey, atonal arrangement and using lots of strange intervals.
The choreography (by various creatives for different scenes) is striking against the background of interesting music, most of which is composed by Dave Carey who leads the live band.
Much of the narrative is driven by dance drama and the use of bodies to express emotion. Young performers are very well drilled here and the effect is slick.
I particularly liked the integration of an occupied wheelchair pushed and pulled in a pattern as a tightly focused part of the dance figure. Inclusivity rules and does it with sensitive enthusiasm – as ever at Chickenshed.
Susan Elkin
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