There are no small extinctions. The loss of any one species – whether a single-celled organism or something as complex as a rhino – is a hugely significant event. Yet, as a species, we humans seem able to adjust to the passing of our fellow creatures with remarkable ease.

It’s a trait that allows us to keep on doing what we’re doing while insulating us from despair – and it just might be leading us towards a bleak future.

Tom Hogan and Nathan Harrison: Birdsong of Tomorrow. Photo © Lucy Parakhina

Created by Nathan Harrison with musician Tom Hogan and director Emma McManus, and developed under the auspices of Griffin Theatre’s Lookout Program, this hour-long lecture-performance weaves together Harrison’s abundant admiration for birds, his rueful passion for punk rock (Aussie legends Frenzal Rhomb in particular), and the playful use of old-school analogue tech – slide carousels, cassette recorders, an overhead projector.

What binds it all together, however, is grief: for sounds and songs we will never hear again, for a lost friend, for a world fast losing its biological diversity.

Supported by Hogan on guitar and loop pedals, Harrison is a gently erudite...