1954 NINETEEN-EIGHTY-FOUR - BBC Sunday NIght Theatre

[Although production standards and film technology seem primitive compared to 2022, this is perhaps the best film adaptation of Orwell's classic/ Performed by the BBC Sunday NIght Theatre - Directed by Rudolph Cartier] +/- It’s sobering to realise how much of the terminology that forms the core of Nineteen Eighty-Four, George Orwell’s regrettably-timeless tale of totalitarianism and brutal social repression has passed almost seamlessly into near-common usage. Thoughtcrime, sex crime, newspeak, doublethink, Room 101 and, of course, Big Brother Is Watching You are concepts that we’re largely familiar with and that feel more pertinent and relevant than ever as we stagger across the screaming social media nightmare world gifted us by the 21st century. The BBC’s landmark production of Orwell’s novel was first broadcast in December 1954, just five years after the book’s publication, and, despite the sometimes primitive and stagey nature of its production, it remains a powerful, disturbing and remorselessly downbeat experience. It’s hardly surprising that sensitive contemporary viewers were traumatised by its cocktail of crushing concepts and images as Winston Smith (a young Peter Cushing) harbours growing resentment towards the soulless regime that has risen up in a Great Britain renamed Airstrip One in the aftermath of a devastating atomic war and is now part of a militaristic superstate known as Oceania. Smith works for the formidable Ministry of Truth but he dreams of rebellion and he embarks on a course of action – including a romance with his colleague Julia (Yvonne Mitchell) that serves to exacerbate his discontentment - that will lead him to the pits of despair and degradation. https://www.starburstmagazine.com/reviews/nineteen-eighty-four-1954