Just Stop Oil activists have stormed the West End and stopped a highly-anticipated performance starring Hollywood star Sigourney Weaver.
The chaos unfolded at around 8pm today as eco-warriors took to the stage at Theatre Royal, Drury Lane to unfurl their orange banner during Shakespeare’s The Tempest.
Activists chose to make their entrance after Weaver emphatically delivered the line ‘Come forth’, also prompting another character to emerge from the floor.
The pair launched a confetti cannon while a voice said: ‘We’ll have to stop the show ladies and gentlemen, sorry.’
They were met with boos and whistles from the audience and shouts of ‘get them off’. Weaver, who had been sitting on a chair, was escorted off stage.
People have already taken to social media to express their disapproval at the actions with one person saying ‘disrupting art and a performance is not cool’.
Another said ‘bloody idiots’ while a third added ‘people are sick to death of you, all you are doing is alienating people’.
But protester Hayley Walsh, 42, a lecturer and mum of three from Nottingham, insisted: ‘I am scared for my children, I can’t sleepwalk them into a future of food shortages, life-threatening storms and wars for resources.
The chaos took place around 8pm today as eco-warriors took to the stage at Theatre Royal, Drury Lane to unfurl their orange banner during the rendition of Shakespeare’s The Tempest
Writing on the banner read ‘Over 1.5 Degrees is a Global Shipwreck’ in reference to an announcement that 2024 had seen this exceeded
Just Stop Oil activists have stormed the West End and stopped a highly-anticipated performance starring Hollywood star Sigourney Weaver (pictured)
‘Years of writing to MPs, going on marches and teaching my students to be more sustainable, hasn’t seen the urgent change needed.’
The other protester, mechanical engineer Richard Weird, from North Tyneside, added: ‘We’re already seeing the damage this crisis is doing to crops, homes and entire neighbourhoods.
‘Unless we come together and demand a move away from fossil fuels by 2030, we will go the same way as manufacturing in the UK.’
Writing on the banner read ‘Over 1.5 Degrees is a Global Shipwreck’ in reference to an announcement that 2024 had seen this exceeded.
A spokesman for Just Stop Oil added: ‘Scientists warn that surpassing 1.5 degrees over pre-industrial levels will trigger catastrophic feedback loops that threaten the stability of all life on earth.’
But someone said on X: ‘I hope every theatre goer that had their performance disrupted takes both of those entitled morons to small claims court for the cost of their ticket refunding.’
And another added: ‘You stupid selfish self righteous *****.’
Though, one person said: ‘From the reviews I’ve read on Ms Weaver’s performance this would have been a relief.’
People have already taken to social media to express their disapproval at the actions with one person saying ‘disrupting art and a performance is not cool’
Activists are escorted off the stage. Protester Hayley Walsh, 42, a lecturer and mum of three from Nottingham, insisted: ‘I am scared for my children’
The comment comes for a show that has received a string of bad reviews which have apparently put people off.
They were reviews that also led to the ticket cost being dramatically slashed from £231 to £85 earlier this month.
Alien actress Sigourney, 74, plays the storm-creating magician Prospero in the new staging of the Shakespeare classic, a role typically played by a man.
The production opened on December 19, with previews from December 7, and will run until February 1 2025.
She said previously: ‘I am delighted to be making my West End debut in Shakespeare’s The Tempest directed by the brilliant Jamie Lloyd – and to do so in Andrew Lloyd Webber’s beautiful and historic Theatre Royal Drury Lane is an extraordinary opportunity. Come and see us!’
Theatre Royal and the Metropolitan Police have been contacted for comment.