NOLA

• David Kettle
• 8 August 2012

This article is from 2012.

Underwhelming take on the 2010 BP oil spill

Theatre company Look Left Look Right scored two hits last year with innovative interactive pieces – You Once Said Yes and You Wouldn’t Know Him, He Lives In Texas – and their offering this year is a verbatim documentary piece about the 2010 BP oil disaster in the Gulf of Mexico. They’ve travelled to the affected area to interview oil workers, lawyers, oyster farmers, journalists, marine biologists, oil industry economists – in fact, a bewildering array of people involved in the fallout from the incident.

With that quantity and diversity of material, there’s the opportunity to dig into the subject in real depth – and the range of perspectives the show offers is undeniably illuminating. But despite the editing of the interviews providing some interesting insights, they are presented so flatly that you’re left wondering why this isn’t simply a magazine article. Some slightly jarring humour comes from the actors’ sometimes overly faithful delivery of the interviewees’ lines – complete with every umm and err. All in all, it’s a horribly fascinating subject, but the flatness of the production style makes the show rather underwhelming.

Underbelly Cowgate, 0844 545 8252, until 26 Aug, 3.30pm, £10–£11 (£9–£10).