Global Warming is Gay

Lifestyle choice? Ethical dilemma? Or is going green just a bit gay? These are the questions posed by playwright Iain Heggie as he gently satirises our responses to the new eco-orthodoxy.

For opportunistic Green MSP Graham Orbison, the drive to save the planet is a chance to seize political power. For his wide-eyed brother Andy, it means a fundamentalist quest to be greener than thou. Girlfriend Kirsty sees it as a splendid excuse to buy some really cool home furnishings, while salesman Russell charges a fortune to the gullible carbon-neutral market.

Piggybacking on the plot of Ostrovsky’s The Handsome Man (is this what they mean by recycling?), Heggie sends up our pathetic attempts to reconcile individual desire with planetary health. In this, it’s all very zeitgeisty and, written with the playwright’s customary zeal, full of ribald energy.

But, despite being directed by Heggie himself, the production suffers from an uncertainty of tone. The young actors of Off Message Theatre Company perform with considerable energy, but pull towards a sitcom realism when the writing calls for cartoonish hyperbole. It means their more explosive outbursts seem out of place rather than funny and, although there is an air of comic mayhem, the enjoyable production generates relatively few laughs.

C Chambers Street, 0845 260 1212, until 25 Aug, 7.35pm, £7.50–£9.50 (£6.50–£8.50).