SOS! Save the Earth from the Peppers

AEROPLIO’s new performance, ‘SOS! Save the Earth from the Peppers’, is an enchanting children’s story

The ice is melting. The forests are warming up. The Earth has started running a temperature. But Pingo knows who’s to blame. The peppers! The red ones. The hot ones. The ones that, nobody knows how, turned up in the ice and now —according to Pingo’s absolutely watertight scientific theory— are heating up the planet and melting Antarctica. There is only one solution: ICE CUBES. Lots of ice cubes. As many as he can find. And that, more or less, is how a panic-stricken penguin sets off on a strange mission to save the planet, looking for ice cubes and for people willing to help him.

Along the way he meets Drya, a big, wise oak tree. She has lived for many years; she has seen times change, people pass by, forests grow and fires threaten them. And when she hears Pingo’s theory about the hot peppers, she realises she urgently needs to explain a few things to him. Because the Earth really is getting warmer.

But the peppers are innocent.

So Drya takes Pingo —and the children along with him— and introduces him to a few eminent figures. From Greek mythology, for example, there is Phaethon, who foolishly took the chariot of the sun and came down so low that he scorched Africa. In this way an ancient myth meets a very present-day question: what happens when the balance of the world around us is upset? With music, songs, spectacular and witty videos, humour, colourful costumes and the children’s participation, ‘SOS! Save the Earth from the Peppers’ turns ecology and climate change into a theatrical adventure.

The children help Pingo tell the funny theories apart from what is really happening on the planet. They discover why the ice is melting, why forests need protecting and why our relationship with the environment comes down to small and big everyday choices. Without doom-mongering, and without loading children with the responsibility to ‘save the planet on their own’, the performance gives them room to ask questions, laugh, disagree and take part.

And towards the end, Drya needs their help. The children take leaves, twigs and acorns and help her fill up with life again. The stage changes before their eyes, and the story becomes a game they take part in themselves. Everyone sings together and dances around the Oak.

Save the Earth, give it life

Let our Earth shine bright

We will all heal the wound

As long as we’re side by side.

And all this because a certain penguin, somewhere near the beginning, saw a red pepper on the ice and jumped to the wrong conclusion. The peppers may have been acquitted. But the planet still needs our attention.

Organised performances for schools.
The performance can also be staged at your school.
Information – Bookings: 210 8656004