Fires are breaking out across a city, but the arsonists can’t be found in Simon Stephens's eighty-minute version of Max Frisch’s play The Fire Raisers with some raucous songs from Chris Thorpe.
The police, who are looking for the culprits, see huge drums of oil used to power the flames but do nothing because the drums are in a rich man’s home. The powerful employer Trueman (Adam Owers), who tells his mates the fire raisers should be hanged, invites the arsonists to stay with him, even though they are stacking up barrels of oil. Complacent about the danger they pose, he calls them friends and even gives them the matches to light the fires.
It brings to mind last week's Oily Oscars conference taking place at the same time as the show just a few miles away at the Intercontinental Hotel on London’s Park Lane, where leading executives of 'big oil' were handing out awards. It was to include the CEO of the Abu Dhabi National Oil Company, who is currently taking time out from that role to be President of the United Nations 28th Climate Change Conference (COP28).
Although they were a little irritated by Greta Thunberg and others outside claiming they were causing climate change, a government minister popped in to cheer them up, and they had a bit of a party.
Trueman (Adam Owers) is a ruthless employer who has just sacked one of his employees. However, the stranger Joseph Smith (Tommy Oldroyd) arrives at his door claiming to be a homeless, unemployed professional fighter. Persuading Trueman to give him a meal and let him stay in the attic, he is soon joined by his partner in crime Mol (Angela Jones), despite the reservations of Trueman’s wife Bobsy (Nadine Ivy Barr).
As the enormous barrels of oil clutter the house, a police officer (Charlotte O’Leary) is reassured that they are nothing to worry about. An “academic activist” appears wanting to reveal the dangers, but the chorus asks in song, “who is this wanker”, adding, “as the world burns, he will analyse it”.
The show could have been an unsettling statement on the complacency and hypocrisy of the rich and the police as the arsonists in plain sight burn up the world. Instead, it feels like a light cartoon romp with an unconvincing plot and a negative portrayal of the homeless and the unemployed.
Meanwhile, back at the Oily Oscars, the police locked up Greta and 28 others for the night while an award was given to a Spanish petrochemical company.
The government intends this November’s King’s Speech to reveal the expansion of North Sea oil and gas exploration. It is unlikely to mention that 2023 could be a record year for wildfires across the world.
A production of Trueman and the Arsonists couldn’t be more timely. If only it had some dramatic teeth.