Ryan Craig’s adaptation of George Orwell’s seminal dystopian novel 1984 is blisteringly good or, should I say, doubleplusgood. Much of the concepts conceived and neologisms coined by Orwell have become staples of conversation today – Room 101, Big Brother, Doublespeak and Thought Police – all pepper cultural debate, but they don’t feel jaded in this powerful production. Orwell’s cautionary tale, published in 1949, imagines a future in which members of a socialist society are ruled over by “The Party” and the totalitarian leader Big Brother.
“Comrades” exist under the mass surveillance and censorship of the “Thought Police” who monitor them through telescreens. Anyone who falls foul of the regime - “thought criminals” – is “vaporised” - secretly murdered and erased. Winston Smith works for the Ministry of Truth, falsifying the past by rewriting historical records.
This is a world where, as we are so frequently reminded, he “who controls the present, controls the past”. Secretly he harbours thoughts of rebellion and contempt for The Party. He finds an ally – and a lover – in Julia who works in the fiction department.
As the two embark on an illicit affair, and Winston begins chronicling his “heretical” thoughts in a diary, he becomes increasingly zealous – something which frightens Julia who admits she is only a “rebel from the waist down”. The staging is simple but highly effective with a screen which largely takes form as th.