Climate change show to come to Caithness as part of a Scottish tour

CAITHNESS will play host to "a thought-provoking show" on climate change as part of a tour which starts in Edinburgh this weekend.

Two in a Barrel – described as "a fun-filled family event" – encourages the young generation to question and address topical issues about the environment.

It begins its Scottish tour at the National Museum of Scotland in Edinburgh on Saturday as part of the Edinburgh Science Festival.

The production, written and performed by Sarah Rose Graber and Ruxy Cantir, will visit a number of other venues before coming to the far north next month when it will be staged at Dunbeath Heritage Museum on May 13 and Reay Village Hall on May 14. Eden Court in Inverness and Cromarty are also on the schedule as is visits to Orkney and Shetland.

Two in a Barrel finds quirky best friends Riri – played by Sarah and Moku, (Ruxy) confined to a barrel sitting on top of an island of rubbish on an adventure filled with puppetry, props and an explosion of colour as they battle the emerging dangers that arise when the waste around them continues to pile higher and threatens to cover them altogether.

The show explores our relationship to rubbish and the environment and investigates how climate change and plastic pollution impacts lives. It poses questions about the waste we produce.

Ruxy Cantir said: "We are so excited to bring this show to communities in Scotland we've not visited yet. We've been working on the show before and throughout the pandemic and to finally share it with young audiences and their families means a lot to us. What I find most valuable about this project is offering a space to young ones and their adults to engage with a difficult subject matter in a fun way. We'll be visiting a lot of coastal communities across Scotland on our tour where plastic pollution and the environmental issues we refer to in the show are an immediate and visible problem, so this tour feels particularly relevant in starting up some important conversations with wee ones."

Sarah Rose Graber added: "We both have a background in physical theatre, clowning, and visual theatre and knew that we wanted to use these forms as a way of telling this story. The climate crisis is bleak, and by using these styles of performance, it allows for humour and curiosity to become entry points to those conversations. As a duo, we've created a wide range of projects together and this one is truly a collision of our creativity, playfulness, and activism."

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