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AS much an illustrated lecture as a stage production, China Plate Theatre’s latest production is a timely reminder of the perilous state of an unstable world with over thirteen-and-a-half thousand nuclear weapons and the Nobel prize-winning work of ICAN (the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons.)

Writer and actor Chris Thorpe greets and chats to the audience before taking them on a personal trip about just what their city, Bristol, means to them and how any nuclear weapon would impact on their world. Utilising projections from NUKEMAP and recordings of the 2020 Lebanon dockside explosion, he creates a vivid impression of the potential local devastation.

His informal patter and detailed research on the state and deployment of nuclear weapons is interwoven with scenes representing the informal politicking of members of the UN including Veronique Christory played by Andrea Quirbach as the senior arms control adviser of the Red Cross delegation at the UN. 

Other representatives of the different factions involved with the treaty are non-specific although the strong American accent of a key figure and his political machinations gives a clear indication of America’s pro-nuclear weapons agenda and its manipulative modus operandi within the UN.

The production’s intention is to show how extraordinary decisions about our future existence are in the hands of very ordinary people and the cast of four, directed by Claire O’Reilly, give strong performances as some of those individuals. The dramatised scenes are interesting but their intentional ambiguities make them less effective than Chris Thorpe’s direct interaction with the audience.

With the recent UN’s inability to do anything about the war in Ukraine or the crisis in Gaza, the impact of any UN treaty, especially one not signed up to by any of the nuclear superpowers, is debatable, but the need to keep the threat of nuclear destruction, accidental or intentional, in the headlines is unquestionable. 

With growing evidence that Britain plans to accept US nuclear weapons back on British soil, this production is essential viewing especially for the generations brought up after the high-profile nuclear threat of the Cold War and the Greenham Common campaign.

Touring in England until March 2. For more information see: chinaplatetheatre.com