Nineteen Eighty-Four

Nineteen Eighty-Four (BFI Dual Format DVD/BluRay Disks BFIB1445 )

This review contains plot spoilers.

The BBC may nowadays be playing safe-not-sorry with its programming, but that cannot be said of its mid-Century days, when weekly drama was looked on as an essential part of viewing.

Made as a play for television broadcast in 1954 as part of BBC TV’s ‘Sunday Night Theatre’, directed by Rudolph Cartier and dramatized by Nigel Kneale based on George Orwell’s hugely influential and controversial 1949 dystopian novel, ‘Nineteen Eighty-Four’ is a tour de force, and now available courtesy of the BFI after many years in the BBC archive.

The action sticks closely to the book, with a Britain of the near future in the iron grip of totalitarian government and re-named ‘Airstrip One’. As part of an Atlantic alliance named Oceania, it is permanently at war with either Eurasia or Eastasia. News is disseminated by the Ministry of Truth and all dissent is ruthlessly suppressed by the Thought Police. The telescreens are fixtures in every room of every building, and in theory at least, ever watchful for the slightest signs of inefficiency or rebellion.

Peter Cushing takes the role of Winston Smith, a minor cog in the hulking governmental machine, a clerk and member of the Outer Party, busily ‘updating’ archive news stories by un-personning (removing) those out of favour with the regime and altering the current enemy state from Eurasia to Eastasia and back again, as official attitude dictates. Cushing turns in a characteristic solid performance as Winston Smith going about his thankless duties diligently, but secretly despising the state, the Outer and Inner Parties and all the apparatus of this oppressive regime.

Sets are appropriately dark, bleak and claustrophobic, and utilise a London now largely disappeared under tons of concrete and glass. Few even knew, never mind would recognize, the site of the yet to be built BBC HQ at White City, which serves as the site of Smith’s miserable workplace, the Ministry of Truth. It seems perhaps ironic that the modernist horseshoe shaped BBC TV HQ has now been transformed into luxury flats, a further transformation to puzzle future generations.

The staging of the Two Minutes Hate is our first taste of the full horror of this future despotic state; Winston and fellow workers gather in a dimly lit room, sit on basic office chairs and scream vengeance at the figure of Emmanuel Goldstein on the screen, the supposed leader of the discontents and revolutionaries. Smith joins in with the orchestrated hate, but Cushing’s subtle playing shows us he does so out of a desire to be inconspicuous.

In the canteen (filmed in Alexandra Palace, thankfully still standing) where Smith tries to give subtle hints to fellow workers of his feelings, he encounters the intellectual Syme (Donald Pleasance) and eventually, Julia Dixon (Yvonne Mitchell) who is more upfront about her rebellious nature. Her flirty persona contrasts with Smith’s remote, stilted self, but the two bond over their common enemy and set about pursuing an affair. They need a place to meet secretly, a long way from the intrusive eyes of the telescreens, and enjoy time away in the country, and eventually, rent a room from seemingly harmless antique dealer Charrington (Leonard Sachs) which has the added lure of no telescreen.

Smith becomes bolder, perhaps as a result of time spent with youthful Julia, making his feelings about the state known to boss O’Brien, (played with stiff authoritarian zeal by Andre Morell) who has all the appearance of agreeing with him. Inviting Winston and Julia to a dinner at his flat, O’Brien demonstrates his seniority in the state by turning off his telescreen, a previously unknown privilege, so that they may all talk freely. Serving fine wine and good food, O’Brien easily has their confidence.  

Even those who have not yet read George Orwell’s masterpiece can probably tell where this story is going, and after their arrest by the Thought Police and subsequent torture, Winston and Julia are forced to betray each other sooner than face the truly horrifying Room 101, which contains everyone’s worst fear.  

In an age when desk workers have their every key stroke and toilet break logged, fake news abounds in the media and surveillance is part and parcel of our digital devices at home and on foot, ‘Nineteen Eighty-Four’ today sounds more of a prediction than a piece of political fiction.

Superbly staged, convincingly acted and unmatched in its chilling dystopian vision of a truly terrifying future, ‘Nineteen Eighty-Four’ must be seen, and now you have the opportunity.

The disks come with such highly relevant extras as script documents, a Nigel Kneale event, discussion about the media reaction to the play at broadcast, and the edition of Late Night Lineup which covered the programme, with special guests writer Nigel Kneale, actor Peter Cushing etc.

Scenester

30/3/22

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