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1984 Adapted
from George Orwell's novel - Tour
Adapter - Alan Lyddiard
Director - Alan Lyddiard and Mark Murphy
Designer - Neil Murray
Music - John Alder
Film - Mark Murphy
Lighting - Jon Linstrum
Company - Northern Stage Ensemble in co-production with the Derby
Playhouse
Venues & Dates - Tour details at end of review
Seen - Dundee Rep
Reviewer - Rachel Natanson
Loud, brash and, quite rightly, frightening
This adaptation is from its outset loud, brash and, quite rightly, frightening.
It places its scene well with film footage of wintry Moscow projected
on to the big blank screens that make up part of the play's industrial,
bleak looking set. With minimal props it transforms, by swift but sometimes
distracting scene changes, into the many settings require.
1984 is hard to bring to the stage and to a live audience, due to its
subject and being a well-known tale. Lyddiard's and Murphy's 1984 relies
overly on its filmed images of violence which, in today's media - saturated
with violent scenes - is not as effective as the far simpler image of
Winston, Craig Conway, lying crying with pain at O'Brien's, Mark Calvert,
feet. The cast do do well and include Jill Halfpenny as Julia with a girlish-ness
and unapologetic nature. Conway's portrayal of Winston's human pain and
suffering, and Mark Calvert's O'Brien whose smiles exist only in O'Brien's
head and the audience's mind.
The play doesn't quite stand on its own as it relies on knowledge of the
story - a person unfamiliar with it could be lost and confused by the
world portrayed. At the start, the film footage and the set movement is
clever but as it carries on it becomes more and more distracting - detracting
from the acting going on. Indeed I found myself looking at the images
on the screen in preference to the action on the stage. This 1984 is worth
a look, and many of the audience do appreciate it but it's not my idea
of Orwell's classic.
© Rachel Natanson 26 February 2002
Tour dates
8 & 9 Feb 2002 at 8:30pm Paris, Theatre a Chatillon 00 33 1 46 57
22 11
12 - 16 Feb at 7:30pm Newcastle Playhouse 0191 230 5151
19 - 23 Feb at 7:45pm mat Thurs 2pm Basingstoke Haymarket Theatre 01256
465 566
26 - 2 Mar at 7:45pm mat Sat 2:30pm Dundee Rep 01382 223530
12 - 16 Mar at 7:30pm mat Wed at 2pm Newcastle Playhouse 0191 230 5151
19 - 23 March at 7:30pm mat Thurs 2:30pm Preston Charter Theatre 01772
258858
26 - 30 March 2002 at 7:30pm mat Sat 2:30pm Mold Clwyd Theatr Cymru 01352
755114
End of Tour
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