What's it like to re-draft Conviction?

One of the main differences in the current version is the addition of a Chorus, played by a varying ensemble of the actors who play the other characters. The Chorus has a basic script of two verses. These express headlines of how people experienced disruption due to the action of the climate activist at the centre of the play. The Chorus reiterate these verses, gradually shifting character, incrementally fragmenting the text, interrupted by and arguing with the ‘real’ characters, perhaps discovering something about their own views during the course of the play.

A rehearsed reading played by highly experienced actors in front of an expectant audience will show very clearly whether Conviction has form and structure, shape and meaning, or is still a thing of lumps and bumps and scratches.

I hope Conviction will have different lives. In October 2026 we’ll show it in the formal theatrical space of the Park200 theatre – thrust stage, fixed seating, lights on stage, audience in shadow – and in the community hall space of the Band Room at Coram’s Fields.

In the future, I hope there will be opportunities to perform the play in traditional theatrical venues around the country. I would also like it to be made afresh in schools, colleges, festivals, community halls.

Fundamentally the play is about carbon emissions and civic engagement. It invites the audience to make a judgement about civil disobedience – ‘causing a public nuisance’ to make a point, raise an issue, protest about an injustice. The questions are set against a backdrop of the climate catastrophe that’s now visible around the world and our responses as societies and individuals to it.

Early in the play the audience is invited to stand and take an oath as jurors in the trial that frames the action. And by implication, invited to stand in a position in the debate and perhaps have a sense of how that feels. In schools, colleges, theatres and parish halls, it may feel different.