New global warming play

The difficulty of addressing a problem as big as this is also the underlying premise of Iain Heggie's satirical new play, Global Warming is Gay. Loosely based on Ostrovsky's The Handsome Man, and directed by Heggie himself with a mixed cast of students and professionals, it seems to question the value of trying to be green at all.

Andy Orbison (younger brother of Green MSP Graham Orbison) is determined to reduce his carbon footprint to zero. Unfortunately, this means buying a lot of expensive green gadgets, while creaming money off his girlfriend Kirsty's sick father. He is not the first man to use a higher cause (and what could be higher than saving the world?) as an excuse to treat other people badly.

It's a confrontational piece which probes areas the Green movement would prefer to ignore: how the scale of the problem tends to induce powerlessness; how the desire to be greener has opened up a whole new sector for scam merchants; how a truly carbon-neutral life might turn out to be neither enjoyable nor sustainable.