one4review | On 23, Aug 2026

Paul Ready, best known to many for his television work in Motherland and Utopia, makes his playwriting and solo-performance debut with Little Animals, an intimate exploration of friendship, grief and the increasingly uncomfortable realities of the climate crisis.
We are present at a memorial for Richard, a lifelong friend of the unnamed narrator. There is an immediate complication: the narrator wasn’t actually invited to Richard’s funeral, and there is clearly something unresolved about the circumstances of his death. Instead, he appears to have organised his own memorial gathering for his friend, delivering something approaching a eulogy to us, although he admits he doesn’t recognise many of us as people who were part of Richard’s life.
The production is stripped back to its absolute essentials. There is no set, no elaborate lighting and no theatrical trickery, simply a rehearsal studio with the audience seated in a circle around Ready. He talks directly to us, but never demands a response, creating the slightly unusual sensation of being present at an intimate gathering rather than watching a conventional performance.
As the story unfolds, we learn how the two friends’ lives gradually went in different directions. Richard became increasingly preoccupied by climate change, while his friend followed a more conventional path into work, relationships and the everyday pressures of modern life. The growing gulf between them raises an interesting question: just how much are we prepared to change our lives when we know the world around us is changing too?
Richard’s obsession also leads to the play’s central metaphor. We are, after all, just animals, and it is our habitats and homes that are increasingly under threat. The climate-change material is, however, less about delivering a lecture than examining how ordinary people respond when confronted with a problem that can feel both enormous and impossible to resolve.
Ready’s storytelling is intimate and engaging, with humour alongside the darker material, and he easily holds the audience’s appreciative attention. An understated, but thought-provoking piece about friendship, loss and the compromises we make when faced with an uncertain future. If you can get a ticket, I would recommend catching this performance.
****
Reviewed by Howard
Studio Theatre at Traverse @ The Lyceum Studio
Various Times
Until 30th August (not 24th)