Despite a certain critic’s continuous rally cry for new plays on climate change, I’m not sure the stage should weather this storm. The issue is so nuanced that anything other than painfully scientific debate just ends up sounding facile. What the stage can do, however, is show us the future now. It can and should transform remote scientific theory into shocking on-stage reality – it should scare the hell out of us.

Unfortunately, Steve Waters’ double bill is not that scary and not really about climate change.  Yes, the two plays revolve around a pair of father and son scientists with some scary truths to tell about rising sea levels, but it is the relationships and not the science that hold the plays together. On the Beach is about families and sacrifice – the science is there to get the arguments started. Similarly, although Resilience is set in the aftermath of a catastrophic Bristol flooding, this context is actually a vehicle for (good) political farce.

The only problem is, Waters still thinks his plays are about well, water. They get twisted up as a result, dragged one way then another, with both spiralling off in bizarre (not in the good way) directions. On the Beach is a curiously jolting piece, with the science and domestic pitched side-by-side, but never merging convincingly. It’s all a bit Pantene really and whilst the ‘science bits’ are genuinely interesting, they don’t feel part of the play proper.

Still, Waters writes families well and director Michael Longhurst teases out a warm, messy chemistry between mother Jenny (Susan Brown) and loony scientist dad Robin (Robin Soans). On the Beach feels safe in Brown’s and Soans’ hands; the play settles down, the dialogue stretches out and the scenes take on a newfound authenticity. If only Waters had focused on this husband and wife team, but he keeps getting distracted by oceans, birds and glaciers. So despite some rich performances from Brown and Soans, their characters don’t add up. It starts to feel they could do just about anything – it is not a good feeling and as the plot unravels, Waters’ play slips from his grasp.

Resilience is similarly confused. This one might’ve scared us – London is about to be hit by an almighty sea surge - but the laughs keep getting in the way. Some of the laughs are worth it. The best bit comes when scientist Will (a likeable, puppy dog of an actor in Geoffrey Streatfeild) rattles off the worst-case scenario to a set of nonplussed government ministers. The very English Minister for Climate Change (David Bark-Jones) is unruffled by the submersion of Cardiff, Liverpool and Peterborough, but stops short at the break down of the London sewage system, ‘Oh - - oh dear.’ Bark-Jones captures the utter lunacy of it all and the play sparkles when he speaks.

But as funny as lots of this is, I’m still not that fussed about climate change. Let Steve Waters write what he knows and write it better - but find a different way of bringing science to life on stage.

Till 6 June 2009