‘Can you feel it? Something is hanging in the balance – ready to fall.’
1856. New York. Eunice sits in what will become Central Park, and wonders if her research into CO2 is telling her something is going horribly wrong.
2027. London. Claire falls in love as the heatwave breaks, and the streets begin to flood.
2100. Svalbard. While an 86-day storm rages outside, Ana hears a baby crying in the seed vault.
The world is ending, sure. But what happens in between?
A fast-paced, funny and wildly inventive play, Flora Wilson Brown’s The Beautiful Future is Coming looks at two hundred and fifty years of real and imagined history through the eyes of three couples. First performed at Jermyn Street Theatre, London, in 2024, this edition was published alongside a new production at Bristol Old Vic in 2025, directed by the theatre’s Artistic Director Nancy Medina.
‘An important play that tackles the most important topic for our age… Wilson Brown understands, like all dramatists, that the personal is political… a wonderful contemporary section that fizzes with genuine chemistry… an entertaining and thoughtful work that more than earns its place on the main stage’
— WhatsOnStage
‘Compelling and conceptually dexterous’
— Guardian
‘Tackles climate grief head-on… elegant and exciting… shrewdly questions how we can actively cultivate hope, even as we feel overwhelmed by despair’
— The Stage
‘At once expansive and intimate… knowing and naturalistic… delicately balances hope and despair’
— Broadway World
‘A fresh and often very funny look at the impacts of climate change’
— Reviews Hub
‘This could be one of the most important pieces of theatre you ever go and see… The Beautiful Future is Coming uses humour and hope to tackle the big subject of climate change… a thought provoking, emotive and moving story’
— Theatre & Tonic
