History of The Crude Oil Mechanicals

2019 - The Beginning

After Extinction Rebellion’s spectacular protest occupations around the world in April 2019, there was an explosion of local XR groups in the UK which formed to prepare for further actions. Lewes and Seaford formed a strong group of about 100 people. All the new members had to choose which of several teams they wanted to join for the forthcoming October Rebellion. Dolmen Domikles had this idea which seemed like it could be crazy, but which was strangely compelling. Could he get together a street theatre group which could contribute to XR actions? He put out an offer, and contacted some friends. Within two memorable weeks, our group formed, we dreamed up, worked on, wrote and performed “Mr Barclay and the Earth”. We presented this play twice on Cliffe Bridge on 20th July 2019. At that point we felt our play was a way of waking people up to what was happenng with climate change, because in October 2019, there was a lot of denial.

Mr Barclays was itself a rehearsal to get the company prepared for the big challenge – taking a play to a big London protest. We devised and produced a new play, “Mr Everybody and the Banker”, a play in three scenes, to support the XR October Rebellion. At 9am on Wednesday 9th October 2019, six members of the Crudes gathered in Victoria Embankment Gardens, assembled their props, including a Fracking Tower, and marched to join the mayhem of the October Rebellion. We performed our play in three iconic settings, Trafalgar Square, Westminster Abbey and Horseguards Parade. We raised morale amongst the encampments where people were being arrested, sometimes even during the play. It was an amazing experience performing for some very courageous people.

Returning to our home town, we performed Mr Everybody during Late Night Christmas Shopping for the people of Lewes, raising our voices to drown out the brass band playing festive carols. We played at the top of School Hill.

2020 - Lockdown and focussing on the oil industry

Lockdown in 2020 stopped us in our tracks. But by the summer we were meeting outside and devising a short film called Ecocide. We had a screenplay, a cast, a production team, and we were all ready to shoot on location in Eastbourne when the second lockdown was called. It was mighty frustrating. It was a long time before we could gather once more, and by then all the team was involved in other things.

Rethinking our Approach

When we started, our aim was to tell everyone about the urgency of the Climate and Ecological Crisis. Now the government is recognising the emergency, but it’s trying to do as little as possible. So we decided to change tack. We know the crisis is being worsened by a number of complex factors, but we feel that the clearest contributor at the moment is the Oil Industry. Exploring new oilfields, and burning all that oil and gas which is now under the ground, will guarantee that most or all of the world will become uninhabitable for humans (and many other species). So we have been targeting Big Oil, and the finance and insurance industries which enable it.

2022 - Four new plays

Since 2022, The Crude Oil Mechanicals have supported Divest East Sussex, a campaign group that has been putting pressure on the East Sussex County Council Pension Committee, who have been determined to invest its pension fund in fossil fuels. Of course this threatens the future of their own pension holders as well as everyone else. In early 2022 Gabriel from Divest asked us to perform at a protest at County Hall before a Pension Committee Meeting.

On May 10th we returned to support Divest East Sussex with a short piece for film called “The Shield”.

"Tug of War"

is a spoof government experiment to decide whether Fossil Fuels or Renewables should get government subsidies. Toby Tweedsmuir, the government representative, doesn't care how he cheats to ensure the Fossil Fuels get the subsidies. It takes some direct action from the crowd to stop him tripping up the Renewables yet again, and surprisingly for him, without his interference the Renewables win. We performed this play in Lewes Cliffe Precinct on 26th March 2022, and then took it to London on April 12th to support the XR London rebellion. We did a great show for the Eastbourne Festival on July 31st, where the audience all jumped up to join in the tug of war, on the Renewables side. 

And we finished the year at County Hall with Divest East Sussex and a “Tug of War” Mark 2 called

Tug of War

In Cliffe Precinct, Lewes

Tug of War

In Cliffe Precinct, Lewes

"Pull Here to Divest"

In the meantime, our chief musician, Dirk Campbell, also showed himself to be a brilliant maker of giant puppets. His 9-foot tall Earth puppet opened up new possibilities. A new play,

"Unfinished Story"

showed Exxon and Barclays being obsessed with drilling more and more oil out of the Earth, trying to hoodwink the audience while their actions cause floods, droughts and crop failure. On 22nd October, we premiered on a windy beach in Seaford, as part of an XR UK Outreach Event.

2023 - Getting on the road with "Unfinished Story"

By now we had a pretty stable company, 9 enthusiastic actors and musicians, all of us developing our street theatre skills. We polished up “Unfinished Story” for “The Big One” XR Protest, and spent a fantastic day on April 21st performing three shows for the XR pickets outside the Treasury, outside DEFRA and near the Department of Trade and Industry. They were fantastic, rowdy responsive audiences. Watch the DEFRA show, to get a sense of what it's like to perform in the middle of a noisy XR action in Central London.

Unfinished Story

Outside BlackRock HQ in London

Unfinished Story

Outside BlackRocjkHQ in London

Unfinished Story

At Kingston Village Fete

Wanting to also reach local people, we played our show in a green field at Kingston Village Fete, near Lewes. 

Then on July 28th we went up to the City of London to the headquarters of BlackRock, the biggest investment corporation in the world. Unfortunately they invest heavily in Fossil Fuels. We saw Mr BlackRock handing over huge amounts of money to Exxon, who voraciously drilled the Earth until the world flooded and the crops failed. At the end the people of the Earth berate BlackRock mercilessly for the damage he has enabled.

Autumn 2023 Cut the Ties and The Greenwashing Line

In autumn UK, XR UK launched a “Cut the Ties” campaign, to target the finance and insurance industries who enable oil companies to explore new oil fields. Through October The Crude Oil Mechanicals contributed with three shows outside branches of Barclays Bank, two in Brighton and one in Eastbourne. We played “Unfinished Story”, but also a new play called “The Greenwashing Line”, a spoof greenwashing event put on by Barclays that protestors take over.

We also went electric, using head microphones and a portable PA, which is great to amplify our voices when we’re competing with traffic and street noise.