Richard Bean is a creative nomad, a pix-and-mix sort of playwright who lights on subjects seemingly at random. He’s written about Brussels, racism, agriculture, social mobility and trawlermen. Now he’s taken on climate change and he’s hit the mark with delicious accuracy. This is his best play so far.
The Heretic is set in a university earth-sciences faculty where Diane, a paleogeophysicist, has found incontestable proof that sea levels aren’t rising. A decade ago she planted a betel nut tree on a beach in the allegedly drowning Maldives. But instead of sinking, the tree is thriving. Her departmental head, Kevin, tells her that her findings may damage the faculty’s ‘business model’ and endanger a juicy contract with a top firm of eco-insurers. ‘I thought I worked in a university,’ she says. To which Kevin (played by James Fleet with his usual tousled charm) offers his wholehearted agreement.
He wishes the faculty could ditch its ‘centre of excellence’ status and return to the good old days when it was ‘a centre of ducking and diving and falling asleep in the afternoon’.
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