Deconstructing Class, Activism, and Climate Action in new play Fire Fire

Set against the backdrop of Thurrock—once one of the UK’s primary oil refining hubs—Fire Fire is a poignant new two-hander by John Webber that explores how class shapes climate protest and attitudes toward global warming. When Paige, a middle-class activist, clashes with Eddie, a retired oil worker, their initial opposition gives way to an unexpected alliance as they discover a shared struggle to be heard. Threaded with East Anglian folk traditions, fire rituals, and live drumming, the play brings warmth, empathy, and humour to the tension between activism and working-class economic reality. Ahead of its run at the Arcola Theatre and subsequent regional tour, writer John Webber discusses how his Essex roots inspired the piece.

Fire Fire draws on your own experiences of growing up in Thurrock, was there a particular moment or moments that sparked the play?

One incident that really sparked my creativity was when my mum, who still lives in Thurrock and always likes to cross the river to shop in Bluewater in Kent, was caught up in a huge traffic tailback when coming back home due to the Queen Elizabeth Bridge being closed by two protestors who had abseiled the structure and closed it. It just made a simple pleasure really difficult for her. When the protestors – and others who had mounted protests nearby – were arrested, they appeared to be mainly middle-class from more affluent areas, whilst those affected were working-class like my family. It made me think about class, the climate protest movement and how protestors generally engage with working people who feel they have reasons to resist change. I’m completely in favour of climate action, I should add! But I could see how some actions have pissed some people off.

Were there other inspirations of research that informed the play?

Something I knew the play couldn’t be was two people arguing the pros and cons of climate protest. I wanted to find something bigger that could connect them – and this turned out to be how nature gives us comfort in difficult times but that ability is being undermined by some pretty extreme weather. This led me to think about attitudes to nature in different times too which unlocked something rich from the ancient history of East Anglia – the pagan myths embedded in the landscape and the line of rebellious figures like Boudicca. One scene is set on the so-called Pyramids of Essex and researching this I discovered that in Southern Nigeria (one character has Nigerian heritage) there are very similar structures, with both these sites seemingly celebrating something archetypal, Mother Earth. This is all threaded through the play to give it an epic quality.

In a story about activism, why did you decide to focus on class?

Perhaps I’ve answered this already – but one image I was struck by shows when a protestor connected to Just Stop Oil interrupted the World Snooker Championships at Sheffield Crucible. He jumped onto the snooker table whilst a game was in play and threw orange dust over everything – there’s a picture that captures the moment the dust is in the air, while he’s on the table on his knees and his eyes are closed in some kind of ecstasy and you can see behind him the snooker audience sat in the auditorium with stony faces, unmoved and with crossed arms. It summed up the conflict perfectly.

Paige and Eddie are two very different characters, how did you go about writing about them to make them feel authentic?

I believe whatever you write there has to be something of yourself in it – and that’s true of dramatic characters in particular. I was an actor for many years and so I can imagine the interior worlds of characters myself. There are real limits to this too, obviously, and so it’s really important to build a team around you during the development of a play to bring other experiences that can inform the writing. Theatre writing is very collaborative in that way. I’ve been lucky in that we workshopped the piece a couple of times with actors and they gave feedback and guided us to reflect the reality of a range of life experiences.

The play has strong roots in Essex, do you think local audiences will react differently to it?

Someone once said – I can’t remember who – that sometimes making art very particular geographically can bring out the universal more clearly. I hope that’s true with this play being set in Essex. The play touches on really universal themes – growing the courage to take any kind of action whether it’s a protest or simply saying something to somebody else for the first time – I hope that will resonate. Certainly the local audiences will enjoy some of the references as proved when we shared the play with people from Thurrock at the end of one of the workshops.

What do you hope audiences come away from Fire Fire thinking about?

I hope they will think about what’s happening to our environment, obviously, but perhaps in the way I mentioned – how something very simple we take for granted may now be lost - the nurturing quality of sitting on a beach, walking in the woods or whatever it is we like to do. And how recognising the risk of this loss could become a unifying thing, actually, bringing a diverse range of people together. Our sense of wonder in the natural world had an effect, to a degree, recently when we all looked up to see the solar eclipse – perhaps there might be a way to come together through recognising the power of nature to help us even if we do it only with one person at a time.

Following a four-week run at London’s Arcola Theatre from 9th September to 3rd October, Fire Fire will tour to 16 venues across the East of England, Brighton, and Birmingham. For complete tour dates, venue details, and ticket bookings, visit

https://www.metalrabbitproductions.com/fire-fire