Boiling Point

Burn Up is the latest drama adding fuel to the climate debate. Sally Williams talks to its stars, and examines the global boom in eco movies.

You can't help but be impressed by Burn Up, the new BBC thriller about an oil company. Tackling the threat of global annihilation in two 90-minute installments, it was shot in Canada, Saudi Arabia, London and Houston. Written by Simon Beaufoy (The Full Monty), produced by the team behind spy drama Spooks, and starring Neve Campbell and The West Wing's Bradley Whitford, Burn Up is driven by a sense of urgency. 'If this is right,' says one character, brow furrowing, 'then it's the end of civilisation.' Boom!

Set in the present day, it features Rupert Penry-Jones as Tom, the new CEO of Arrow Oil, a major British oil company. His head is turned turned by Holly (Campbell), Arrow's new director of renewables, and her sweet talk on the 'third energy age'. It could have been boring, but it is anything but.

Beaufoy started writing Burn Up three and a half years ago, when many people were still discounting the threat of global warming. Because few dramatists were interested in the subject, he got 'amazing access' to scientists and decision-makers - even John Ashton, Tony Blair's climate tsar. 'I'd meet heads of oil companies, and have polite meetings where they'd say, "We'll be alright a 40-year transition to a hydrogen economy." Then I'd say, "This isn't for a documentary. It's off the record," and they'd say. "OK, this is how it really is: we're about 10 years from an unstoppable warming situation, which will lead eventually to the end of civilisation."

'Burn Up is a hybrid of fact and fiction, but the science is all true,' says Beaufoy, who has emerged from the project a changed man. He cycles and has converted his home to solar and wind power. But Burn Up is his most decisive action: a populist alarm, a drama to galvanise a mass audience.

'The thriller is the vehicle,' he says. 'It's the Trojan horse that will get people to watch something they might otherwise not. Scientists have given up trying to make us aware of things. Now it's artists and filmmakers who can make a difference.'

The greening of the screen began with An Inconvenient Truth (2006). Al Gore's Oscar-winning documentary. Now climate-change awareness is the height of Hollywood fashion. This year has already seen Arctic Tale, a documentary narrated by Queen Latifah about the struggles of a walrus pup and a polar bear cub as their home melts, and The 11th Hour, Leonardo DiCaprio's enviro-doc.

Green thinking is now even leaking into 'popcorn movies': M Night Shyamalan's apocalyptic The Happening is released in June and due next year is James Cameron's much-anticipated sci-fi eco-parable Avatar.

Any debate about the existence of global warming is on the wane. 'Now it's about the response - or more to the point, our lack of response,' says director Franny Armstrong (McLibel). She is behind The Age of Stupid, an independent film set in 2055, in which Pete Postlethwaite plays an archivist trawling through news and documentary footage, wondering why we did not do more when we had the chance.

It was the idea of doing something 'poignant and important' that attracted Rupert Penry-Jones to Burn Up. 'What I liked about my character was that he has a lot of indecision about what to do' - much like all of us. Penry-Jones is the first to admit he's no Mr Green: 'I have constant battles with my wife (actress Dervla Kirwan) about my leaving all my gadgets on standby, but I recycle, and am very aware of leaving lights on and overheating the house.'

London-based Neve Campbell says that issues have long been a part of her life but playing Holly in Burn Up heightened her awareness. 'I wasn't aware of just how much trouble we're actually in.'