Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 9/10
Cast: Aaron Barker, Aaron Kehoe, Alice Corrigan, Callum Crighton, Chloe Hughes, Courtney Parry, Daniel Fitzgerald, Eiffel Lu, Ellie Turner, Emily Woosey, Ester Larkin, Felipe Pacheco, George Clarke, Georgie Lomax Ford, Hannah McGowan, Harry Seargant, Heidi Henders, Isobel Balchin, Jake Holmes, James Bibby, Jamie Pye, Joe Davies, Joe Williams, John Collins, Johnathon McGuirk, Jordan Connerty, Joshua Meadows, Katie Smith, Keeley Ray, Leah Gold, Lucy White, Luke Logan, Luke Patterson, Margaret Saunders, Melissa Waddington, Nadia Mohammad Noor, Nathan Russell, Nick Crosbie, Olivia Doherty, Paige Bradbury, Poppy Hughes, Stuart Dagnall, Tami Holland.
It is not the generations who live upon the planet now that will suffer the most, it is those we condemn to live upon the once fertile and abundant world in the future who will denounce us in the history of a time yet to be written that will have to live through the sheer disrespect we have shown our home since the Industrial Revolution, the utter lie we have passed down for generations that we have made a difference, that we have solved the crisis heading our way in what can only be seen as a war on the Environment.
Humanity’s folly in the way we believe all of the problems we have caused in our short time on Earth can be solved is to be seen by its reaction in the everyday, we still say nothing when we see someone litter the streets, we protest when we are told we must pay five pence for a plastic bag and then moan and wring hands when we find that there is an island in the Pacific completely made up of plastic and human flotsam and jetsam just rotting slowly away, it is enough to give The Environmentalists a headache just by looking at it.
Those of us over a certain age might now close our eyes to a lot of what is happening round the world, only caring when it impacts upon us personally, consumed as we are to the point of ridiculous implosion, however we owe it to those we talk of loving, to at least do something, anything possible to ease the situation, for as the members of the prestigious YEP were able to shout out with huge justification to the Everyman audience, “Do it anyway, you might just save the world.”
Like other YEP productions, The Environmentalists gathers immense strength by being a piece of humbling work set out with much passion, its enthusiastic zeal contagious and a one in which places highly yet again the work that YEP do. Under Matt Rutter and Chris Tomlinson, YEP’s whole outlook has become one of beautiful inclusion and delightful rage but with the holding close of absolute humour to bring the players even closer together; something in such a large ensemble might be difficult to regulate but in YEP is overwhelmingly obvious and true.
The Environmentalists is yet another splendid stepping stone in the careers of the Young Everyman Playhouse performers, a play of honest delight and to which all involved deserve the praise of each person fortunate enough to see it.
Ian D. Hall