'Juniper Blood' review — Mike Bartlett tackles the big issue of our time in his thorny environmental play

Read our review of Juniper Blood, starring Hattie Morahan and Sam Troughton, now in performances at the Donmar Warehouse to 4 October.

The climate crisis takes centre stage in Mike Bartlett’s new play, which sees a couple become a modern version of The Good Life in trying to become entirely self-sufficient. But the notion of what constitutes a truly good environmental strategy – and what makes a good person – becomes increasingly complex, reflecting the realities of this knotty subject.

Idealistic Ruth and her partner, the ironically dubbed, often-taciturn Lip, are planning an eco revolution on his late father’s farm – to the annoyance of their more pragmatic, traditional farmer neighbour Tony. They also faces criticism from their visitors: Ruth’s stroppy former stepdaughter Milly, who accuses them of posh playacting, and her friend Femi, a rural ecology student who thinks they can’t escape capitalism, and also that they aren’t going far enough.

This is clearly an urgent topic, as evidenced by our current heatwaves, and Bartlett packs in tons of interesting information and ideas. As a result, however, James Macdonald’s lucid but plodding production (which features two intervals) feels rather like an extended lecture, to the detriment of the characters. Femi, in particular, is used solely for exposition purposes, but everyone takes turns dutifully voicing an opposing view.

The drama itself is most gripping when Lip becomes simultaneously a more radicalised environmentalist and a more selfish partner, while Ruth wavers in her commitment when she becomes pregnant – and faces the alarming truth that Lip would sacrifice their child to his cause rather than compromise by engaging with modern medicine.

That agonising dilemma encapsulates the fraught challenges of the climate debate: it’s clearly an existential threat to us all, but the instinct to protect ourselves and our loved ones will always compete with more abstract ideas of how to shape a better future for everyone. Bartlett also probes the limitations of the virtuous organic farm movement, which pushes up prices and makes it an option solely for rich people.

Hattie Morahan is excellent as the devastated Ruth, whose determinedly cheerful, middle-class armour initially holds up against the barrage of snide insults and derision, but who begins to crumble as the costs spiral and she is emotionally abandoned. Sam Troughton is riveting as true believer Lip, who has a fanatical bond with our ancient land that is both poetic and alarming – there are shades of Jerusalem’s Rooster Byron.

Bartlett stacks the deck in his generational divide, however. Jonathan Slinger’s Tony makes constant off-colour jokes yet is fairly sympathetic (he’s a lost, lonely man with a terminally ill wife), while the youngsters are constantly irritating: Milly is a hectoring spoilt brat, Femi is naïve but smug.

There are keen observations here and sharply witty lines, but rather than developing the characters’ inner lives, Bartlett drops clunking explanations into the text: Milly apparently had a traumatic childhood, Ruth might be doing all this in response to her former marriage to a corporate bastard. There is also slightly cavalier treatment of mental health.

The verdant design by Ultz features a striking scene change to reflect Lip’s dramatic new rewilding strategy – a visual that lingers on, as do the thorny ideas, even if the people that voice them never quite achieve the same potency.

Juniper Blood is at the Donmar Warehouse to 4 October.

Photo credit: Juniper Blood (Photos by Marc Brenner)