Jessica Norman's debut play, This Little Earth, is now running at the Arcola theatre in London. The production, longlisted for the Women's prize for playwriting, blends a love story with an adventure to Antarctica, where two flat-earthers seek proof that the world is flat.
The plot follows Honey, played by Fanta Barrie, and Christopher, played by Ross O'Donnellan, who meet after personal tragedies: Honey has just lost her sister to cancer, while Christopher is estranged from his daughter following a divorce. Together they travel to the Antarctic in search of a barrier that they believe marks the edge of the world.
Directed by Imy Wyatt Corner, the play moves back and forth in time, from their first meeting to a dangerous fall into a ravine. Cat Fuller's set of icy shards and Jamie Lu's sound design of arctic winds create a cold atmosphere. The story touches on conspiracy theories, including Covid conspiracies, the Iraq war and the moon landings, reflecting contemporary concerns about misinformation and distrust of official facts.
The production takes a more absurdist turn with the appearance of a talking penguin and a conspiracy theory guru, both played by O'Donnellan. These hallucinatory episodes are described as amusing but are delivered in a way that halts the drama, shifting the play into a discursive mode. The ending has been criticised as a cop-out, with the play becoming self-referential and suggesting that truths are merely stories.
Despite its flaws, the review praises the play as heroically flawed, with 'sparks of beautiful writing' and ambitious ideas, concluding that Norman is one to watch.
