Location - Liverpool Playhouse

Date - 22/11

In November 2024 arriving to watch a new adaptation of George Orwell’s classic novel feels less a look at a famous book and instead more a nervous glimpse of the future. A 1949 novel features a very different version of a year forty years ago and yet you come away two hours feeling this sadly will feel prescient for years to come.

Arriving to the theatre the audience is glimpsed by a stage dominated by a huge eye that contains a screen which is also capturing CCTV images of the audience often whom are unaware of being watched. It slowly ramps up the tension even before the play begins. We start seeing Winston Smith (played brilliantly by a fragile Mark Quarterly) announcing all his sins to camera blown up in detail on the screen behind him then we jump to the beginning to find Winston is actually very good changing news stories at the Ministry for Truth. Very quickly we feel this is a place where the wrong word, a slip of emotion or doubt can put you in the spotlights of the government which we find watches you everywhere. A comedic devout neighbour Parsons (David Birell) throws himself into organising placards for Hate Week and is proud that his 7 year old daughter reports strangers for infractions.

We sense Winston is feeling the pressure and this is not helped in the first act when he meets the beguiling and complex Julia (Eleanor Wyld) and their relationship also releases more rebellious thoughts. In the first half it’s these all these banned things like chocolate, music, poetry, physical touch that the play suggests even with all this repression is what ultimately moves people to wanting more and resisting. The play’s video screens take these to to a picturesque open woodland depicting the Golden Country compared to the more bare and claustrophobic London scenes which brings much needed light but suggests the darkness is hovering all around the edges.

There is a plot of Smith digging out a long hidden truth about the regime and hoping he can get his strangely sympathetic new manager O’Brien (Keith Allen) to assist but we feel the State closes in and the first half brings things to a terrifying close that makes us eager to see what happens next.

If the first half explores how stated use control of media, surveillance and endless lies then the second half shows totalitarianism’s even darker relentless face. We go into the torture chambers and watch Smith being slowly dismantled. This is done powerfully O’Brien is a compelling evil character - calm, allegedly rational and yet can turn into a moment into a snarling fanatic who has a single aim. Smith is broken down raw - even made naked on stage to the audience’s visible shock and what I came away with was the idea that it’s not simply control but as O’Brian talks about ‘scooping you out to become one of the us’ giving people reasons to hate, divide and if all else fails physical torture and executions to sign the deal. This is not a tale of hope, resistance or the good in people. The final appearance of Room 101 that contains your biggest feel is delivered by a stage in darkness with just actors voices and is deeply disturbing as we wait for things to happen. It demonstrates that control the State has powerfully over everyone. The coda as to Smith’s faith is shattering as we see the man we knew is gone for good.

Hugely powerful and concluding its run in the U.K. this was a tremendously thoughtful and disturbing production that gives the audience a lot to think about. The adaptation by Ryan Craig and directed by Lindsay Posner really brings the source material and its arguments to life.