A performance of The Tempest starring Sigourney Weaver was brought to an abrupt halt on Monday night, when it was disrupted by two climate change activists from the protest group Just Stop Oil.
During the show, two members of the campaign group disturbed the performance when they came on stage holding an orange sign with the slogan: “Over 1.5 Degrees Is A Global Shipwreck.”
This referred to the recent news that 2024 was the first full year in which the global temperature rose by 1.5 degrees above pre-industrial levels.
As the pair fired off an orange confetti cannon during a scene featuring the Alien star, The Guardian reported that the audience was told: “We’ll have to stop the show, ladies and gentlemen, sorry.”
The three-time Oscar nominee was then led off stage by a member of the crew.
Protester Hayley Walsh said in a post on the Just Stop Oil website: “I am scared for my children, I can’t sleepwalk them into a future of food shortages, life-threatening storms and wars for resources.”
Reiterating the group’s stance that the rise in temperature is a “global shipwreck we can’t ignore”, she highlighted the recent “wildfires in California, deadly floods in Valencia and hundreds of thousands without power in the UK this weekend”.
“This isn’t a distant, future problem,” she insisted. “We need a global treaty to stop fossil fuel burning and a global emergency response.”
Fellow demonstrator Robert Weir added: “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.”
In 2023, a performance of Les Misérables in London’s West End was disrupted by protesters from the same group who chained themselves to the show’s set.
More recently, Just Stop Oil members also targeted Taylor Swift’s private jet during her Eras Tour, spraying several aircrafts with the group’s signature orange paint.