Philippe Quesne's Farm Fatale, now playing at the Southbank Centre in London, presents a group of scarecrows turned pirate radio broadcasters. With faces of melted plastic and voices like children swallowed by machines, they no longer guard crops or scare birds due to the climate crisis. Set in a near future where the air is hard to breathe and birdsong is recorded, the only people thriving are industrial farmers capitalising on others' ruin.
The scarecrows interview a bee, described as one of the last in Europe, with a microphone taped to a pitchfork. This wistful French production, first created in Germany and performed in English, takes a sociological approach to watching oddball characters in an enclosed space. The first half is deliciously freaky and sweet, establishing the rules of its world as the scarecrows explain why they left their farms and how their radio station fuels hope and protest.
As the show progresses, on a bleached set of white plastic and hay bales designed by Nicole Marianna Wytyczak, it becomes distracted by its own imagination. The story turns to a sci-fi concert for eggs and a violent vigilante attack, neither as rooted in the worldbuilding or as entertaining as the rest. The piece meanders in making its case for art as salvation and farms as humanity's lifeblood, with the scarecrows performing a karaoke cover of It's Not Easy Bein' Green.
Despite its restless nature, the extraordinary aesthetic and committed cast, including Gaëtan Vourc'h as a gormless activist, keep these droll effigies excellent company in their rejection of despair. The performance blends absurdity with a poignant message about climate crisis and resilience.
