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Police arrest two after protest at Sigourney Weaver London play

Activist group Just Stop Oil said the pair held a sign highlighting the dangers of rising temperatures

Police arrest two after protest at Sigourney Weaver London play

A handout picture released by the Just Stop Oil climate campaign group shows activists holding a banner reading "Over 1.5 Degrees is a Global Shipwreck" starring Hollywood actress Sigourney Weaver (C), who is escorted off stage during a performance of "The Tempest" at the Theatre Royal in London late on January 27, 2025. The message refers to the recent announcement that 2024 was the first full year over the 1.5-degree global temperature rise limit, beyond which scientists warn stability of life is under threat.

Photo by Jamie Lowe / Just Stop Oil / AFP

The two protesters climbed onto the stage during the play and launched a confetti cannon

The audience greeted the pair with boos and whistles, along with shouts of "Get them off"

UK police said on Tuesday they had arrested two people a day after climate activists disrupted a London play starring Hollywood actress Sigourney Weaver.

According to footage posted on social media, two protesters climbed onto the stage at London's Theatre Royal during a performance of William Shakespeare's "The Tempest" and launched a confetti cannon.

Activist group Just Stop Oil said the pair held a sign that read "Over 1.5 Degrees is a Global Shipwreck" to highlight the dangers of rising temperatures.

Global average temperatures hit record highs in 2024, and over the past two years, they temporarily surpassed a critical 1.5 degrees Celsius warming threshold for the first time.

Hollywood star Sigourney Weaver debuted West End as the magician Prospero in William Shakespeare's The Tempest Instagram

The audience greeted the pair with boos and whistles along with shouts of "get them off," but by the time police arrived, the pair had left.

"Two people– a 42-year-old woman and a 60-year-old man- were arrested on suspicion of aggravated trespass after attending a central London police station on Tuesday. They remain in custody," police said.

In a statement, Just Stop Oil named one activist as mechanical engineer Richard Weir, 60, and Hayley Walsh, a lecturer from Nottingham in central England.

"I am scared for my children," the statement quoted Walsh.

"I can't sleepwalk them into a future of food shortages, life-threatening storms, and resource wars."

Weaver, 75, who achieved global fame in the 1970s and 1980s in the "Alien" franchise, plays magician Prospero in the play, which opened on December 19.

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