Kill Drill. Barons Court Theatre.

Luke Ofield’s genial eco-comedy Kill Drill covers familiar territory: the costs and consequences of taking ‘direct action’ in the fight against climate change when big companies and powerful authorities are seemingly arrayed against you. Ofield airs his arguments adroitly and even-handedly, and the gentle humour is tinged with sufficient narrative momentum to make for an engaging hour.

Mother of two, Dawn (Christine Kempell, evincing middle-class eco-angst), and junior engineer Kit (Pip O’Neill) are radical climate activists, though it must be said, rather inept ones. Having inveigled themselves onto an oil rig, courtesy of the government’s brightly named “drilling for all” employment scheme, their plans to glue themselves to vital equipment soon go awry.

A surreptitious recce to the rig’s instrument room sees the duo accidentally knock the Captain (Lloyd Morris in bluff-with-a-heart-of-gold mode) unconscious. Panicked, they cable tie the officer to a chair just as he threatens to come to. “This is not what it looks like…, we’re just here to protest”, claims one of the duo. The bruised and furious captain, fearful of the storm that is barrelling towards the rig (a metaphor, one supposes, for the climate crisis), threatens dire retribution and demands to be released. But what should the pair, now hungry, frightened, and phoneless (middle-class Dawn is on a “no phone day”), do?

Ofield adds complications in the form of a door that will not open, an unexplained power cut, ominous “kicks” coming from the drilling equipment that threaten explosive consequences, and an impending landing by a boatload of armed navy personnel. One supposes the potential for pressure cooker tension is there in all these plot shenanigans, but Ofield’s characters are so amenable and cooperative that any sense of dramatic jeopardy rarely rises beyond a simmer. The most histrionic showdown comes in deciding what type of pizza the trio should order: “vegan, I presume”, the Captain asks sarcastically.

Bar much in the way of character depth or conflict, Ofield takes the opportunity to air some light comedy and some familiar political arguments about activism. Are Dawn and Liz civilised people forced into an impossible situation, or the kind of eco-terrorists the Daily Mail likes to label “the dark side of woke”? It is not difficult to discern where the writer’s sympathies lie, but the debate is well-balanced. Ofield’s point is that saving the rig, for which read saving the planet, demands collaboration all round. In an earlier iteration, the play was titled Accidental Birth of an Anarchist, which gives a subtle hint as to where events may (or may not) be headed.

Writer and Director:  Luke Ofield

Reviewer: John Cutler