The Oikos Project: Oikos and Protozoa

Book excerpt: The Oikos Project and the two plays Oikos and Protozoa are an attempt to take responsibility for creating a different future in relation to the coming threat of climate change. Can we createa future based less on material gain and more on being in sympathy with our only planet? OIKOS Salil, a highly-successful businessman, has it all worked out: career, family, river-view des-res in Chiswick and a beautiful mistress. So why is he increasingly haunted by ghosts from the Old Country? When the Thames bursts its banks and his family scramble to keep their heads above water, the very foundations of his perfect life are threatened and Salil is forced to look to both his future and his past for redemption. PROTOZOA When the United Kingdom disappears in The Floods, Cordelia is determined to rebuild her grand house at any cost. When Sheann emerges half dead from the black waters, she will do anything to find her lost child. In this strange, formless new world, Inspector John Hall, born again out of the mud and slurry, will stop at nothing to ensure the survival of his citizens. If civilisation was to disappear tomorrow, how would we rebuild it? As Cordelia, Sheann and Hall’s lives collide in a volatile, repressive and increasingly familiar world, who are the women on the other side of the shrinking, fetid river who watch and wait?