The animal kingdom is in revolt, the madness might be spreading to humans, and in any case we’re dreadful at coping with the whole business whether as individuals or in terms of public policy. There, that’s saved you an hour and a quarter you wouldn’t have got back.

Stef Smith’s play is one of those thankfully rare instances that seem to corroborate the antiquated cliché of the Royal Court as a haven for worthy, pious but fundamentally dreary liberalism. The urban eco-crisis here begins with a pigeon flying through a (closed) window and ends with an incident that could have come from The Birds if it had been directed by Ken Russell instead of Hitchcock. In between there are fox culls, park-burnings and a preventative programme of arson, as well as a suicide attempt, a possible suicide pact, revolutionary protests, onstage vivaria and a lot of synthetic blood on the glass wall upstage.

It sounds eventful, but I’m afraid it’s ultimately quite directionless. By this I do not mean that Hamish Pirie fails to provide a sensitive staging, nor that the cast of six don’t try. Stella Gonet and Ian Gelder in particular give more than the writing of their characters either demands or deserves. Gelder’s figure, for heaven’s sake, is indicated as gay because his handkerchief is in a shade he identifies as robin’s-egg blue and he has a liking for show tunes... not exactly oblique or imaginative hints. In fact, it is possible to interpret the play as suggesting that homosexuality is a manifestation in humans of the aberrant behaviour infecting the animals; this is no doubt entirely unintentional, but it’s distinctly sloppy.

I briefly considered that it might be a political allegory, with the grainy, live pre-show video feeds of the audience implicating us in the insanity and devastation. Again, though, I’m afraid that would be over-dignifying matters. This is nothing more than an earnest eco-fable which says less, and less compellingly, in 75 minutes than the final scene of Caryl Churchill’s Far Away does in ten. Smith has done much better before, and will in the future; as for this, let us never speak of it again.

Written for the Financial Times.