Five Just Stop Oil activists burst on Wednesday the performance of The Miserables at a theater in London’s West End, they displayed banners calling for an end to oil drilling in the United Kingdom and chained themselves to the stage with bicycle locks. The Sondheim Theater was evacuated minutes later and The activists were arrested.
“The show can’t go on,” proclaimed activist Hannah Taylor, at the moment of the interruption, just when the actors raised the revolutionary flag and they began to interpret Do you hear the people sing?. The music stopped playing and the environmentalists displayed their orange banners to the total confusion of the public, who had never attended anything like it in the 36 years that the work inspired by the novel by Victor Hugo.
“The show begins when Jean Valjean steals bread so he can feed his sister’s hungry son,” noted Hannah Taylor. “How long will it take until we have to steal bread and there are riots in the streets. We are facing a catastrophe!”
“Like the revolutionaries in The Miserables“We call on people to join the civil resistance against the Government’s criminal plans to maximize oil and gas reserves,” read a statement released by the group.
The action in the West End takes place after one year since the launch of tomato soup against The sunflowers the Van Gogh and la National Gallery, led by two Just Stop Oil activists, Phoebe Plummer and Anna Holland, who were arrested and appeared before the judge days later. The two pleaded “not guilty” and the trial is scheduled for July 22, 2024. The painting did not suffer major damage as it was protected with glass.