2009
The Contingency Plan is a double bill of plays by Steve Waters, On the Beach and Resilience, from the frontline of climate change. Both plays stand alone and are complementary. Together, they present an epic portrait of an England of the near future, in which huge flooding has destroyed Bristol and threatens to sink the east coast.
On the Beach
Thirty years ago, Robin Paxton silenced his radical thinking on climate change and with his wife Jenny withdrew from public life to their home on the Norfolk coast.
Now, their son Will, a glaciologist, has taken on his father's work. He returns from months in the Antarctic to tell his parents he will take up a role within government.
Yet behind the happy reunion with his father, lies thirty years of secrecy and bitterness. As the truth surfaces, the family is torn apart, and Robin and Jenny must face the rising tide alone.
Resilience
A Tory government has just come to power and wants radical answers to the imminent floods. Two new ministers, a true-blue Tory and a member of the Notting Hill set, try to out-manoeuvre and undermine each other.
When the Chief Civil Servant brings maverick glaciologist Will Paxton into the meeting, he puts an extreme scenario on the table: England, from the coastline to its capital, faces catastrophe.
22 April - 6 June 2009
Robert Butler interviews Steve Waters here.
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