Hot Mess and Acid’s Reign: the romcom and queer cabaret spotlighting climate crisis

E arth is a single woman with a lot to give; Humanity is a charismatic bad boy who turns out to be an inveterate taker. Their toxic relationship is told in Hot Mess , a musical created by Jack Godfrey and Ellie Coote, which works both as an eccentric romcom with broad commercial appeal and a serious analogy for our abuse of the once fecund, now depleted planet. A hot ticket at the Edinburgh fringe last summer and now on in London, it is at the vanguard of a newly blooming genre of musicals about the environmental crisis. The RSC’s The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind uses exuberant song and dance for the true story of a teenager who builds a wind turbine from an old bicycle in drought-ridden Malawi. Bryony Kimmings’ Bog Witch is a one-woman show with music and standup about the plight of the planet, while in New York the folk-pop musical Dear Everything was a response to climate emergency co-written by V (formerly Eve Ensler) and narrated by Jane Fonda. Meanwhile, in the West End hit Hadestown , hell is strewn with empty oil drums. It is exciting that there are more writers tackling the topic, says Coote, who adds that concern about the climate “is so prevalent that it would be wild if artforms were not engaging with it, actually”. Significantly, these shows chime with the post-pandemic yearning for feelgood stories about pulling through together and being more responsible in relationship to the Earth. …