Over the years, George Orwell’s dystopian totalitarian nightmare has been adapted countless times on radio, the stage and screen.
Amid the ongoing culture wars, the term Orwellian couldn’t be more relevant across the political divide, with the likes of Trump’s alternative facts on the Right versus the precedence of personal feelings over objective truth on the Left.
Now an ambitious immersive version of 1984 has arrived in London, inviting audience members into a world of total surveillance.
Hackney Town Hall steps in for the novel’s Ministry of Truth with those in attendance being assigned numbers by actors in boiler suits from the word go.
After attaching these to our chests, we were sternly ushered into a brick-lined room with a high ceiling that was mocked up as a themed bar.
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Being greeted by a theatre trigger warning sign and a chance to sip negronis in front of a cabaret singer wasn’t exactly in keeping with the world of 1984. Nevertheless, it certainly started to be when we were all taught to sing Oceania’s national anthem. Ordered upstairs, we found ourselves in a council chamber where we were asked to fill out an assessment form one section at a time. Beginning with logical problems this soon turned into nonsense questions which proved pretty amusing before having the papers collected in.
Enter Thought Police agent O’Brien (played very engagingly by Jude Akuwudike, who was the show’s real highlight), pontificating the greatness of the police state to us, the party faithful. Rather than performing the story of 1984 chronologically, the narrative was already further as we watched footage of Winston and Julia’s illegal secret meeting.
We would later head back downstairs to view the two lovers in their secluded bedroom, trying to escape the watchful eye of the state. There they embraced each other and the simple pleasures and freedoms that we can so easily take for granted in the West; from chocolate, bread and music to a choice of clothing and physical intimacy.
Both this room and the chamber upstairs were used in really creative ways, with one heightened moment performed inside a rising elevator and on a balcony far above us.
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The ever-relevant post-truth themes of 1984 are explored well throughout the piece, with a really interesting and uncomfortable moment of audience participation in the tortuous Room 101.
It’s just a shame that this involved changing the novel’s ending to a scene that doesn’t quite make sense of what came before, unlike the original narrative.
Ultimately there were a lot of good ideas in this ambitious production; one that couldn’t decide if it wanted to be a play or an immersive experience. We’d have quite liked more of the latter with greater audience interaction and decision-making ala Secret Cinema, but this is still worth a visit for those intrigued by the concept.
1984 is performed at Hackney Town Hall twice a day until Sunday and tickets can be purchased here.
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