Do We Need More 1984?

Scottish theatre says yes

It is easy to say that 1984 has become a flimsy warning against totalitarianism. Since its release, we have been warned that our liberal society sits on a knife’s edge above a descent into Orwell’s nightmarish vision. Any day now, we will flip our calendars to reveal that we have woken up in that terrible year. So, in order to brace myself for the (ever)incoming doom of our future, I watched Chris Hannan’s new production of 1984, put on by a trifecta of Scotland’s largest theatre groups.

The play opens with Orwell checking himself into Glasgow’s Hairmyres Hospital, where we learn about his time fighting in the Spanish Civil War as a communist. Orwell’s doctor is revealed to be a veteran of the Spanish Fascists, which opens up the play’s main idea: the contrast between societal conflicts. Hannan shows us this difference through the past, present, and future with memories of wartime Spain, the liberal order of Europe, and the dark future of totalitarianism. We follow Winston, a man whose job is to destroy historical documentation, as he falls in love with the illicit joys of freedom. 

The pages of 1984 have slowly condensed into stale shorthand for our supposed transition into authoritarianism. Citizen’s Theatre, the producers of the show, herald the story as “more relevant than ever before” in today's political climate. They used the same slogan in 2012 for their last staging of the novel. According to that production, Orwell’s own experiences that led to the birth of 1984 were “startlingly familiar to audiences [in 2012]”. Like many, I went in weary of a re-tread.

Luckily, it was not the same old story. Upon entering the theatre, I was met with the back-lit silhouette of a hulking iron ribcage, which transported me to the apocalyptic aesthetic of Airstrip One, or in our world, London. Winston’s story plays out with a few interspersed episodes of Orwell’s own experience writing the novel from his hospital bed, as he gets into tussles over politics with his disagreeable doctor. Plunged back into the darkness of tyranny, Winston, played by the same actor as Orwell, muses over the possibility of real conversation. One feels the contrast as the same actor switches between two personas at total odds: the loud-mouthed Orwell, portrayed as a brattish Etonian, and Winston, a man for whom we can feel nothing but gut-wrenching sympathy, crushed by the jaws of censorship.

As Winston is tortured for his rebellion, the second movement of Beethoven’s 7th Symphony plays, distorted into abstract noise. Combined with the crash of speeding trains, the speakers crescendoed into pure madness as Winston writhed under horrifying re-education. Hannan destroys Beethoven’s music with this industrial noise, stripping the essence of Winston’s humanity away as he learns that 2 + 2 = 5. 

The play concluded with two successive discussions, ending both the story of 1984 and Orwell’s stay at the Hairmyre. Winston, now fully brainwashed, discusses the benefits of only speaking to those you agree with. Hannan inverts this in the following scene, in which Orwell and his doctor discuss the importance of verbal conflict. It's a good point, but walking out of the theatre, I felt frustrated by this ultimate message of the play. Perhaps I have been brainwashed by Big Brother, but it seemed naive to presuppose that good, objective debates can still be held. Hannan’s message lags behind our current social media-frenzied environment, with the message veering into oversimplifying the nuances of the political climate of 2026. So, to echo every discussion of the book: 1984 has never been more relevant than today. Perhaps we just still don’t realise why.

Image from Wikimedia Commons