They say never work with children or animals but in The Trials it was the teenagers cast from across Kent who really shone.

The drama, written by Dawn King, is an intelligent and engaging exploration of the burden the climate crisis places on the young.

Arriving at The Marlowe, in Canterbury, you immediately picked up on the excitement in the air as much of the audience was there to see their young family members make their stage debut.

Thankfully for the many nervous mothers in the crowd, the young performers excelled in their roles as teens charged with the task of deciding whether their elders deserved to be exterminated for their role in destroying the planet.

The three adult defendants were portrayed by Unforgotten’s Emma Cunniffe, Simon Paisley Day, who recently portrayed Dominic Cummings in This England and Joanne Pearce.

The show began with an ominous countdown accompanied by a highlight reel of the horrors humankind’s impact on the climate has already inflicted, we were shown a flash of the corpse of a giraffe followed by a distressing clip of a group of young men being swept away by flood water.

While this beginning gave me trepidations, as I feared I was about to be subjected to a straightforwardly moralistic tale, I was pleasantly surprised as the story unfolded to discover something much more gruesome.

The twelve children of the jury, which the story centres around, are charged with deciding whether to impose the death penalty.

In just 15 minutes, the jury aged between 11 and 20, must decide whether to eviscerate their “dinosaur” elders whose crimes include driving a car, going on holiday or simply doing nothing to slow the progress of climate change.

This setting, simply staged with the conceit being the court is being held in a long abandoned theatre, allows the talented young actors to sink their teeth into some knotty moral conflicts.

I was forced into a moral conflict myself when the interval came around as I realised the traditional half time ice cream was nowhere to be found.

As the production was formulated with environmentally sustainable principles in mind, in fact wildflower seeds were handed out after the show, I imagine this means ice cream was deemed an unnecessary indulgence but I can’t say I wasn’t disappointed.

There was still room for fun, despite the impressive tension created during the monologues in which those accused begged for their lives, with particularly charming scenes seeing the kids imagine what it might be like to see snow or eat bacon - both things this scorched future is without.

The Trials premiered at the Donmar Warehouse last summer in a sell-out run starring Heartstopper’s Joe Locke.

Kent’s production was announced in early 2023 and auditions for a spot on the jury took place throughout May.

At the time The Marlowe said they were putting the performance together to “amplify the voices of young people across Kent in response to the climate crisis.”

Ultimately The Trials asks us two questions: ‘How much responsibility do we bear for the norms of the society we live in?’ and ‘What is the nature of justice?’.

While these are rather bigger questions than can be answered in 125 minutes, The Trials successfully asks its audience to keep pondering long after they’ve left the auditorium.

Personally I pondered all the way home, although somewhat guiltily as I found that despite my sympathy with their message I couldn’t resist popping into a corner shop to buy the ice cream I had earlier been denied.

My conclusion - perhaps next time the production could instead locally cast the defendants, I know I’d enjoy seeing some local polluters squirm.