This is a Love Story: A Pop Musical is the perfect piece of work to stage for the times.
COP26 is happening in Glasgow and Dundee Rep Theatre is one of the Tayside institutions involved in Creative Carbon Scotland’s Climate Beacons for COP26 project,
“It’s a pop musical which imagines Earth and Humanity as two people in a romantic relationship,” says co-creator Ellie Coote.
A 200,000-year history of life
“Basically, we’re telling the 200,000-year history of life on Earth through the metaphor of a love story.
“It’s a show which thinks about environmental issues, climate change and our responsibility to the planet, and this iteration of it is happening because of COP26.
“It’s a great time to preview the show and contribute to the conversation.”
Commissioned by Vicky Graham Productions, and with developmental support so far from Arts Council England and HOME Manchester, the version of the show seen here will be a work-in-progress which plays out as a concert version.
A live band and two actor-singers performing the roles of Earth and Humanity. Throughout, Dundee Rep’s artistic director Andrew Panton has been a support to the pair.
“I guess we wanted to get as close to Glasgow as possible (during COP),” says co-creator Jack Godfrey.
“Andrew is a big supporter of new musicals, we did a workshop of the show in June and he came along to that. He’s been someone we’ve been talking about the show with for a while, and this is a great opportunity.
“Ellie and I have wanted to write something for a while about climate change and the environment, it really feels like the biggest issue facing the world today.
“This show came about when I started writing some pop songs, some sad break-up songs, and as I was singing one of them I had the thought, ‘what if this is humanity singing to the Earth?’
“The song went, ‘why can’t we be the way we used to be, what’s gone wrong?’ I asked Ellie if it was a stupid idea.”
“I said no, it’s not stupid, it’s really interesting,” says Coote. “There are a lot of puns and lightness and silliness about the show, but at the same time it’s dealing with a really difficult relationship, so we do go to those darker places.
“It’s aware that on the surface it’s a silly concept for a show with so much opportunity for comedy, so you never want to lose that, but we’re talking about something really serious as well.”
Creative video captioning
Directed by Miranda Crownwell, the main feature of the show at the moment is the creative video captioning for deaf and hard-of-hearing people, which has been designed by Laura Spark.
Beyond that, the main purpose is to give the songs and story space to see how they go down with a live audience.
What would Coote and Godfrey like to see onstage if they had an unlimited budget, though?
Double-revolve and moving planets
“A double-revolve and moving planets!” says Coote. “There’s so much scope to have fun with the metaphor, to be quite high-concept, but the challenge is holding that domestic, truthful, honest relationship at the centre of it.
“That’s what we’ve really tried to do with in the writing.”
“The other part of it is, we’re writing a show about climate change and we want it to be as sustainable and as environmentally friendly as possible,” says Godfrey.
“Otherwise it would be a bit hypocritical if we were like, ‘we want to save the planet but we’re using a hundred fireworks every night’.”
“A double-revolve powered by the audience?” wonders Coote.
The next big step
“That’s the next step, once we’ve got the material right – exploring how can we bring something that has a big sound and isn’t a small-scale piece of theatre, but in a sustainable way. It’s a big question.
“The most important thing for us so far has been thinking about that sustainability at every stage of the process – not tacking it on at the end after we’ve decided what we want to do, but embedding it into every conversation that we’re having.
“We’re not going to have all of the answers immediately, but if it’s at the forefront of our minds, we should be able to think of creative solutions earlier on.”
- This is a Love Story: A Pop Musical is at Dundee Rep Theatre on Saturday November 6. See https://dundeerep.co.uk/ for tickets, and details of how to livestream through Rep Studios.
- To find out more about Dundee Rep’s involvement with Climate Beacons for COP26, see www.creativecarbonscotland.com/project/climate-beacons-for-cop26.
