Our new play shows how community action can fight climate change

Kit Miles

I’m a playwright and theatre-maker born in Southampton, now living in London. My plays have been performed around the UK, including VAULT Festival, The Lowry, The Omnibus Theatre and soon at Theatre Deli in London.

I auditioned for Theatre For Life’s The Feeling (of Knowing Something is Wrong, But It Isn’t) in December 2023, working as a performer/musician on the project. During this time, I started my MSt in Creative Writing and was subsequently invited by artistic director Michelle Smith to be playwright on a new project: Bringing The Outside In.

My life now is split between Southampton and London. Coming back to Southampton has revealed to me how much of a rich arts culture exists in the city that I never really saw before I moved away for university five years ago.

As a playwright, my job is to compile the research that Michelle and her team have done and turn it into a script. I’ve had the privilege of working with and writing for an incredibly talented group of actor-musicians who I find endlessly inspiring.

As part of their research for the project, Michelle and her team invited young people from the local area to explore how the changing climate has impacted every part of our natural world. This included work on water systems, soil erosion, sea water, our beaches and local biodiversity.

They were lucky enough to talk to experts in ecology and conservation from Southampton National Park City Project, Freshwater Habitats and Countryside Education Trust and the New Forest National Park.

I came into the project at the moment of synthesis, trying to find what would speak to our target audience. The young people involved felt most strongly about the invisible impact of air pollution. We explored how we could tell the story of a young person with asthma experiencing eco-anxiety, having grown up in the urban sprawl.

We experimented with style, wanting to keep the story full of light, joy and hope, even when dealing with something young people so often find troubling.

This is where we discovered Yernagate the giant – from a New Forest folklore tale of a giant who kicked a man to the moon for deforestation. We found this story hilarious and realised how much it resonates with modern anxieties: wouldn’t we all love to kick the problem to the moon?

With Yernagate (now Yerna in our show) we could really dive deep into the realms of fantasy, turning the theatre into a forest where our asthmatic protagonist can find hope and the energy to take action and engage with nature.

Our production will take place at Mayflower Studios on 15^th July. We have two shows at 2pm and 7pm. We will also be touring the show across the south coast in January 2026, so keep your eyes peeled for that.

We have 60 free tickets to our performance available for young people aged 11-25 and we’re really keen to engage with young people outside mainstream education (home educated) and from youth and charitable groups. Free tickets can be reserved at: www.theatreforlife.co.uk.

We hope everyone will share our posts and follow us on Instagram and Facebook (@theatreforlife). That’s the number one way we can get our work out there in the digital age.

Feedback is so important and of course we’d love to hear from anyone who’s inspired by the show or has any questions – message us on Instagram or come and chat to us after the show. Theatre For Life also runs a Youth Consultancy Board for people under 30, and we always advertise for upcoming projects and events on social media.

To ensure that more young people can benefit from the project, we’re planning to make a digital resource pack for schools and educational bodies that will include a recording of Bringing The Outside In.

We’re also grateful to arts and culture organisations like Southampton Forward for sharing our work with their networks and getting as many people as possible involved in this story. We want to spread the word that community action does fight climate change. It’s the smallest people that change the world.

Bringing The Outside In is supported by the New Forest NPA and the #YouCan Youth for Climate and Nature scheme, a partnership project led by the New Forest National Park Authority and supported with a Climate Action Fund grant from The National Lottery Community Fund.

Find out more about the YouCAN scheme here: https://www.newforestnpa.gov.uk/communities/young-people/youth-for-climate-and-nature-youcan/