Fire Fire – Arcola Theatre

John Webber’s Fire Fire brings Paige, a middle-class queer climate activist of Nigerian heritage, and Eddie, a white retired oil worker, together at a country park in Essex. Their opposing positions on climate protest repeatedly bring them into conflict, until they recognise a shared struggle to be heard and decide to take drastic action together.

There is something genuinely fiery about Fire Fire. Over its 80-minute runtime, the production sustains an extraordinary sense of urgency, not simply through the writing but through the physical and vocal energy of Gabrielle Brooks and Chris Simmons. Conversations arrive at a blistering pace, with exchanges that feel as though they have been waiting to happen. The intensity is felt in the bodies of the two performers as much as in the words they speak.

At the centre are two people who initially seem to have very little in common. Paige is a middle-class climate activist from Colchester, while Eddie is a white retired oil worker who has spent his working life in the industry. Their encounter brings the class politics of climate action sharply into view. For Paige, climate protest is an urgent moral imperative. For Eddie, the oil industry is tied to work, livelihood and the economic realities of working-class life. The play’s strength lies in allowing neither position to remain entirely abstract. Both characters arrive carrying histories that complicate the arguments they make.

Eddie is also mourning his brother Jim, whose death is connected to asbestos exposure from the refinery, while Paige is carrying the absence of her birth mother and a strained relationship with her partner Ben. Their personal histories gradually reveal a surprising point of connection: beneath their opposing positions is a shared experience of struggling to be heard. Gabrielle Brooks as Paige is blisteringly precise, with an urgency in her voice and physical presence that makes her activism feel embodied rather than simply ideological. Chris Simmons as Eddie is particularly affecting. His initial indifference to Paige’s activism slowly gives way to engagement, and that transition is visible in his body as much as in his dialogue. We watch someone who appears to have withdrawn from the world begin to give a shit about what happens to it.

There is also a compelling surreal and ritualistic quality running through the production. The Pyramids of Essex, with their associations with ancient burial practices, become a space where contemporary climate protest intersects with older traditions of gathering, ritual and fire. This is where the production moves beyond a straightforward debate about climate politics. Annie-Lunnette Deakin-Foster’s movement direction works particularly well with the raw physicality of the performers, giving their encounters a visceral quality while allowing the ritual elements to emerge organically.

The production’s scenography is one of its great strengths. Peiyao Wang’s set design creates an almost in-the-round burial mound, a space that shifts function as Eddie and Paige’s relationship develops. It provides both a recognisable physical location and an evocative ritual landscape. The lighting design by Charly Dunford is exceptional. Five vertical battens stand upright from the floor, accompanied by shifting ambient and focused states that move swiftly through transitions and the passage of time. The lighting repeatedly creates stage pictures that are striking in their own right. At points, I found myself watching the composition of the space almost as closely as I was following the dialogue. Sarah Spencer’s sound design and composition, including the live drumming, is similarly assured. It moves between grounded environmental sound and more heightened sonic textures, establishing day and night, location and shifts in tension while building momentum alongside the action.

The writing is at its most interesting when it allows the realistic conflict between Paige and Eddie to open into this more heightened, ritualistic world. The play convincingly establishes why this unlikely encounter between two very different people is worth watching, and the two characters remain compelling throughout. I was less convinced by some of the ways information is revealed. At points, dialogue feels like it is giving us information rather than allowing us to discover it through the action, and some revelations could have benefited from more dramatic space to breathe. I was left with a strong sense that the play is wrestling with the relationship between individual action and collective good, but some of these ideas could have been allowed to sit with us for longer.

Still, Fire Fire is an impressively crafted production. Jennifer Tang’s direction maintains a remarkable pace while allowing the production to move between realism, ritual and heightened theatricality. Most importantly, the play does not reduce climate action to a simple question of right and wrong. It asks what happens when political urgency meets economic reality, personal grief and the human need to be heard.

By the end, the fire of the title feels larger than protest itself. It becomes a question of what we are willing to risk, sacrifice and set alight when we finally decide that something has to change.

Fire, Fire plays at the Arcola Theatre in London from 12th September to 3rd October 2026. Read more and book your tickets at www.arcolatheatre.com

Reviewer: Gaurav Singh Nijjer
Reviewed: 11th September 2026
North West End UK Rating: