Theatre reviews: 1984 | High Society
This brilliant new stage version of 1984 makes it clear that Orwell’s dystopian vision might have been created specifically for our troubled times, writes Joyce McMillan
1984, Citizens’ Theatre, Glasgow ★★★★★
High Society, King’s Theatre, Glasgow ★★★★
It’s no secret that George Orwell’s terrifying vision of the future, captured in his 1949 novel 1984, has not entirely come to pass. These days, in the west, the threats to our freedom to think and feel for ourselves come less from over-mighty state structures than from the ever more sophisticated information technology, mostly in private hands, on which we now depend every day.
Yet as Chris Hannan’s brilliant new stage version of 1984 makes clear, in some key respects Orwell’s dystopian vision might have been created for our time. Orwell’s imagined demand that people “reject the evidence of their own eyes and ears” has been much quoted in recent years, with good reason; and Hannan’s version, staged with frightening and majestic force at the Citizens’ before a Scottish tour, flips between Orwell’s own late 1940s life-story – as a Spanish Civil War veteran dying of tuberculosis in austere postwar Britain – and the story of his hero Winston, a professional re-writer of history trapped in a fiercely totalitarian society built on lies, and the weaponisation of hate.
In Dominic Hill’s bold, brutal and sometimes beautiful production, Jack Tarlton delivers an astonishing central performance as both Orwell and Winston, the one holed up in Hairmyres Hospital after falling ill on Jura, the other also facing death, thanks to his stubborn unwillingness to abandon ideas of truth and humanity.
In a brilliant eight-strong ensemble, Jessica Hardwick is unforgettable as Winston’s rebellious lover Julia, while Irene Macdougall is chilling and superbly complex as torturer-in-chief O’Brien. Both Tom Piper’s towering mid-20th century turbine-hall of a set, and Nikola Kodjabashia and Phineas de Thornley Head's tremendous score of crushing industrial sound shot through with strains of Beethoven’s 7th, capture the mood of the story with astonishing power.
And if the first half of the story, with its sense of history being rewritten and language diminished by the day, has slightly more traction in 2026 than the horrific second half, the final words Hannan gives to Orwell and his fascist Scottish doctor, played with great subtlety by Robert Jack, bring the story straight back home to us; dark, brilliant, and completely unavoidable.
The decade after the Second World War was a strange time, full of dark Orwellian forebodings on one hand, and soaring hopes for a brighter future on the other; and this week Edinburgh Playhouse offers a glimpse of that upbeat postwar mood in the current touring production of High Society, starring lovely Helen George of Call The Midwife as the story’s wealthy heiress heroine, Tracy Lord.
Based on Philip Barry’s play The Philadelphia Story, the legendary 1940 film of it, and the joyous 1956 film musical, High Society is set at the Lord family’s luxurious Rhode Island mansion. The story revolves around the efforts of Tracy’s divorced first husband, Dexter, to derail her planned second wedding to a stuffed shirt called George; and with the help of a playlist of magnificent Cole Porter songs culled from the original film and from his whole back catalogue, Tracy eventually finds her way back to the right man, despite a sudden fierce attraction between her and attractive gossip magazine journalist Mike, who arrives in search of exclusive wedding stories.
It’s not that High Society completely ignores the politics of the time; the script, and songs like Who wants To Be A Millionaire, are full of witty awareness of the wealth gap between the Lords and the rest of humanity.
Like everything else about this show, though, its political edge is genial and forgiving; and with a 12-piece band and fantastic ensemble playing & dancing up a storm in numbers like Well Did You Evah and Now You Have Jazz, there’s no resisting the luscious spectacle, wit and romance of Rachel Kavanaugh’s production, and of one of the sharpest stories in the whole musical comedy repertoire.
1984 at the Citizens’ Theatre, Glasgow until 26 September, and on tour to Dundee, Aberdeen and Edinburgh, until 7 November. High Society at the Playhouse, Edinburgh, 8-12 September.
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