Interview: Tanya Ronder On Her Play F*CK THE POLAR BEARS

Tanya Ronder's new play F*ck The Polar Bears is just about to open at the Bush Theatre. It's a tense time.

"It's a bit like stepping on a plane," she says. "You go into that zone - it's on somebody else's hands now. It's nerve-wracking - you're all going to be judged on that show. There's definitely tension on that for everybody involved."

The press material for the play describes it as "a smart and funny new play about a family who have the world at their feet. Will they stamp all over it?" It's a domestic-focused drama with big themes about energy consumption, capitalism and global warming.

"I was feeling pretty furious with the guys taking home massive bonuses and running our energy companies, and I was thinking, 'They're probably nice blokes at home with their families and their kids and their wives. I need to write about them to dismantle my own judgement - go into one of their houses and look at the guilt behind some of their actions in a world that's running out of resources,'" explains Ronder. "They're not taking responsibility, but none of us are - we're all closing our eyes and covering our ears and none of us is dealing with it properly."

She points out that in a world where massive, selfish consumption is accepted as normal, regardless of its impact on individuals and the world as a whole, it can feel impossible to challenge the status quo.

"It's difficult to feel potent about it - and really that's what the play is about," she says. "It's about our impotence and how we manage our relationship to the facts - we all know it's happening. I spoke to a guy who's worked in the energy for 15 years and he says he has never met a climate denier. I think that's really interesting. The assumption is that they must be pretending it doesn't happen. But they all know it's happening, they just justify it by something else, and never really ask the question, 'What if we didn't earn that much money?' They never go beyond the structure of the world we live in now, an utterly consumerist one."

Of course, the political landscape in the UK is currently being challenged by a new Labour Party leader, Jeremy Corbyn, looked upon by some as "unelectable" but by others as the radical thinker who can help to lead the way to a fairer, kinder society.

"It's extraordinary and exciting!" she enthuses. "There are millions of us appalled about the way the world has gone, and we're not able to do anything about it, then a guy comes along like him, the most unlikely rock star ever, and he becomes a superstar overnight because we're so thirsty for a generous-hearted person stepping up and offering to lead."

Writing is a great outlet for this kind of anger, she thinks, and she's pleased that the cast ("lovely - very engaged with it all") also buy in to her message.

"Part of me is so glad to have just put it out there, it's what I believe, it's what I think, it's what my concerns are and what I think we should all be concerned about," she says. "That brings relief, to have that in itself - however the production moves it on from there."

F*ck The Polar Bears runs at the Bush Theatre until October 24.

Photo credit: Helen Murray

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