Rob Wallace

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🎭 Exciting news for theatre lovers: the Regent's Park Open Air Theatre revival of Fiddler on the Roof is transferring to the Barbican Theatre this summer, followed by a UK and Ireland tour! 🎻✨

Review: Kyoto (@sohoplace) The RSC and Good Chance’s climate thriller has transferred to the West End, and clearly not a moment to soon.

Kyoto is more than a play. It’s a warning and a call to action.

As Los Angeles burns and climate deniers regain power, its message is clear: the time to act is not tomorrow or next year. It is now.

Read my full review @theatregb.com

theatregb.com/2025/01/17/r...

“Saving the world is filthy business,” says Don Pearlman in Kyoto.

The play critiques the hypocrisy of climate talks, from the carbon emissions of delegates to the entrenched power of oil companies. Did the Kyoto Protocol work? The cherry blossoms in Kyoto that fall earlier each year say otherwise.

For a play about policy, politics, and protocols, Kyoto is remarkably entertaining.

The fast-paced, cinematic script weaves a globe-trotting thriller of backroom deals and power plays. This would make for brilliant screen material one day.

Stephen Kunken is mesmerising as Don Pearlman in Kyoto. His performance is razor-sharp, intellectual, and deeply menacing.

Yet, like all great villains, Pearlman is disarmingly funny—adding an unsettling charisma to his cold-blooded calculations.

At the heart of Kyoto is Don Pearlman, a real-life Wall Street lawyer & oil lobbyist. Here, he is full-on Shakespearean villain.

A “grey man” in appearance, his character is chillingly manipulative—driving the climate talks into chaos while cloaked in plausible deniability.

The immersive staging of Kyoto at @sohoplace centres the action on a UN-style roundtable with delegates seated among the audience.

Lanyards are handed out on arrival, blurring the line between spectator and participant. It’s as immersive as it is unsettling.

From the creators of The Jungle, Kyoto is a gripping new production by Good Chance Theatre & the RSC.

Directed by Stephen Daldry & Justin Martin, it’s immersive, political, and fiercely timely—placing audiences right at the heart of the climate talks.

Kyoto charts the behind-the-scenes battles of the 1997 Kyoto Protocol, the first global agreement on climate change.

In light of recent events, it plays less like a history lesson and more like a horror story. This is theatre at its most prescient.

As the audience sat, enraptured and shocked, watching the first preview of the climate thriller Kyoto in London, 5,500 miles away in Los Angeles, the planet was literally on fire.

A haunting parallel that underscores the urgency of this play. The stakes? Nothing less than the future of our species.

🌍🔥 As Kyoto premiered in London, 5,500 miles away in Los Angeles, the planet is literally on fire.

This gripping new play dives into the origins of the climate crisis, blending history, politics, and Shakespearean drama into a hauntingly prescient warning.

Why is Kyoto a must-see?

If you let it wash over you, much like the storm that begins the play, this Tempest is an experience worth pondering, if not wholly embracing. (27/27)

There is something undeniably intriguing about Lloyd’s avant-garde approach. If nothing else, it’s an admirable vision of the play - ambitious but messy, minimalist yet epic. (26/27)

So, will this Tempest achieve the iconic status of its predecessor on Drury Lane? That’s unlikely. If it is, its critical reception has unfortunately ensured that this one will likely be remembered for all the wrong reasons. But is it as bad as the reviews suggest? I don’t think so. (25/27)

It’s even more frustrating, because when it comes together—the wire work, the billowing fabrics, the fantastic underscore, the striking set design and spectacle—it sometimes borders on extraordinary. Yet these flashes of brilliance are undercut by muddled execution. (24/27)

And likewise, the climax feels extraordinarily lazy. The ensemble are directed to spend fifteen mind-numbing minutes walking in circles around the orbit of Weaver’s Prospero, and it drags and drags and drags. (23/27)

Lloyd’s direction oscillates between brilliant and frustrating. Whilst Lloyd has become known (and often revered) for his minimal approach to props and staging, here it often feels like a handicap. A washing line gag falls flat when there are no clothes to sell the joke. (22/27)

Matthew Horne and Jason Barnett garner a few laughs as Trinculo and Stephano, but most of their scenes fall flat. Though no fault of the extremely capable actors, the scenes with the Dukes are an exercise in endurance. They drag and drag and drag. (21/27)

The rest is a mixed bag, unfortunately. Mara Huf’s Dune-inspired Miranda and James Phoon’s Marty McFly-esque Ferdinand make for a passable young love story but leave little lasting impact. Peter Forbes’ Caliban is probably more likely to be remembered for its baffling design than its nuance. (20/27)

The performance is so arresting, it elevates the dynamic between Prospero and Ariel to become the emotional anchor of the production. The final moments between the pair are unexpectedly poignant—a true crescendo amidst the play’s chaos. (19/27)

Mason Alexander Park, for their part, fares much better as the sprite Ariel. From their dramatic descent from the fly tower of Drury Lane, in grizzled voice and ethereal movement, they are endlessly transfixing to watch. (18/27)

On the other hand, it strangely gives the whole production a kind of ASMR quality—although I’m not sure that’s what they were going for. When I joked to my friend that Weaver’s performance reminded me of Siri, he suggested that might have been the point. (17/27)

Unfortunately, whilst the intention is there, it feels that these choices let the interpretation down. Watching Weaver perform is a bit like listening to an AI—flat and unlifelike—making it difficult to connect to the emotion of the character. (16/27)

Likewise, Max and Ben Ringham’s atmospheric, synth-laden underscore evokes vintage space fantasy. In the starring role, Sigourney Weaver seems to have channelled Captain Picard in her portrayal of Prospero: soft-spoken but resolute, diplomatic but compassionate. (15/27)

The design conjures imagery of the barren desert landscapes of Dune or Luke Skywalker’s home world of Tatooine in Star Wars. Jon Clark’s lighting design helps to heighten the otherworldly atmosphere—the black nothingness occasionally pierced by blinding lights that feel like UFO beams. (14/27)

If this is the case, Lloyd wears his sci-fi super-fandom heartily on his tattooed sleeve in this Tempest. Alongside collaborator Soutra Gilmour, Lloyd places the action on a series of dark, rolling sand dunes that dominate Drury Lane’s vast stage. (13/27)

He was once tapped to direct the mega-musical adaptation of Back to the Future (could you imagine THAT production today?); and later this year, he’s taking Bill and Ted (Keanu Reeves and Alex Winter) on another ‘Excellent Adventure’ to Broadway by way of Samuel Beckett’s Waiting for Godot. (12/27)

This time, Sigourney Weaver, a notable sci-fi action-heroine, places this production firmly into Alien territory.
I don’t know for sure, but as a child of the ’80s, I suspect Jamie Lloyd might be a sci-fi superfan. (11/27)