Two Charged After Just Stop Oil Protesters Interrupt West End Performance of THE TEMPEST
Two protesters from the environmental campaign group stormed the stage at Theatre Royal Drury Lane on Monday evening, halting the show.
As BroadwayWorld previously reported, Just Stop Oil interrupted a recent performance of The Tempest on the West End, starring Sigourney Weaver. Now, two people have been charged, according to The Standard.
Richard Weir, 60, and Hayley Walsh, 42, were charged with aggravated trespass on Tuesday. They are due to appear at Westminster Magistrates’ Court on February 25.
Read the original story on The Standard.
Two protesters from the environmental campaign group stormed the stage at Theatre Royal Drury Lane on Monday evening, fired a confetti cannon, and stated that they are stopping the show.
The protesters were holding an orange banner that said "Over 1.5 degrees is a global shipwreck", which was a reference to the play itself, as well as the recent report that revealed that 2024 was the warmest on record globally and the first full year when the average temperature exceeded 1.5C above preindustrial levels, according to The Guardian.
Weaver was escorted off stage and, less than a minute later, so were the protesters.
This is not the first time the group has interrupted a West End performance. In 2023,protesters from Just Stop Oil stormed the stage at a performance of Les Miserables in London. Additionally, just last year, climate change protesters from the group Extinction Rebellion stormed the stage during a performance of An Enemy of the People on Broadway.
The Jamie Lloyd Company’s production of Shakespeare’s The Tempest starring Sigourney Weaver in her West End debut as Prospero, is currently running at Theatre Royal Drury Lane until 1 February 2025.
