1984 review – brings new meaning to the word Orwellian

Citizens theatre, Glasgow Orwell is himself a character in this frustrating but provocative adaptation of his dystopian classic, which seeks to refresh its metaphors and make its totalitarian nightmare seem real again What is there left to say about Nineteen Eighty-Four in 2026? By now, Orwell’s dystopian satire has been held as a mirror to everything from Trump to TikTok.

But this co-production from a trio of Scotland’s leading theatres (Dundee Rep, Edinburgh’s Lyceum and Glasgow’s Citizen) is a new adaptation by Chris Hannan, and seeks to shine fresh light on one of our most overused modern-day shorthands.

It’s framed by speculative biography about Orwell’s tuberculosis treatment in a hospital near Glasgow, and it feels cheap, at first, to correlate Orwell and 1984’s Winston so simply.

Both are played by Jack Tarlton with the same petulance and hacking cough.

But Winston’s childlike naivety, and his monologues pleading for genuine conversation (which reverberate emptily; a literal echo chamber) eventually make for jarring contrast with Orwell’s frosty dialogues with his doctor, who fought opposite him as a fascist in the Spanish civil war.

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