Just Stop Oil Activists Charged After Protest At Sigourney Weaver’s West End Play

Two members of the campaign group Just Stop Oil have been charged with aggravated trespass after disrupting a performance of Sigourney Weaver’s West End play.

On Monday night, two climate change activists came on stage during one of Sigourney’s scenes in the William Shakespeare play The Tempest, holding an orange sign emblazoned with the message: “Over 1.5 Degrees Is A Global Shipwreck.”

This slogan referred to the recent news that 2024 had been the first full year in which the global temperature rose by 1.5 degrees above pre-industrial levels.

During the demonstration, which was met with a mix of boos and cheers from the crowd, the three-time Oscar nominee was led off stage by a member of the crew.

Two days later, BBC News reported that the two protesters had been charged over the incident, and will appear at Westminster Magistrates’ Court on Tuesday 25 February.

One of the demonstrators, Hayley Walsh, said in a post on the Just Stop Oil website: “I am scared for my children, I can’t sleepwalk them into a future of food shortages, life-threatening storms and wars for resources.”

Reiterating Just Stop Oil’s stance that the rise in temperature is a “global shipwreck we can’t ignore”, she highlighted the recent “wildfires in California, deadly floods in Valencia and hundreds of thousands without power in the UK this weekend”.

“This isn’t a distant, future problem,” she added. “We need a global treaty to stop fossil fuel burning and a global emergency response.”

Robert Weir, the other protester, also said: “We’re already seeing the damage this crisis is doing to crops, homes and entire neighbourhoods. Unless we come together and demand a move away from fossil fuels by 2030, we will go the same way as manufacturing in the UK.”In 2023, a performance of Les Misérables in London’s West End was disrupted by protesters from the same group who chained themselves to the show’s set.

In 2023, a performance of Les Misérables in London’s West End was disrupted by members of the same activism group, who chained themselves to the show’s set.

More recently, Just Stop Oil protesters also targeted Taylor Swift’s private jet during her Eras Tour, spraying several planes at London’s Stansted Airport with the group’s signature orange paint.