1984 turns the spotlight on Big Brother and mass surveillance in a new staging at Liverpool Playhouse.
Headlong brings George Orwell’s dystopian vision of the future to life, in a new staging created by director Robert Icke and writer Duncan Macmillan.
This reimagining filters it through the lens of contemporary culture, where Big Brother and Room 101 are ideas that prevail, and the notion of surveillance—online data tracking, Prism and CCTV cameras—is all too much a part of everyday reality.
Playing the role of Winston Smith will be Mark Arends, last seen at the Everyman in Macbeth (2011), following appearances there in The May Queen (2009) and Urban Legend (2008).
Joining him are Tim Dutton, whose stage and screen credits include The Bourne Identity and Ally McBeal; Headlong regular Stephen Fewell (Henry V Part I and II, Bristol Old Vic); Christopher Martin Nolan (War Horse, National Theatre), Matthew Spencer (Sleuth, Watermill), Gavin Spokes (Utopia, Channel 4), and Hara Yannas (A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Shakespeare’s Globe).
Completing the ensemble cast is Mandi Symonds, last seen at the Liverpool Playhouse in 2012’s A Streetcar Named Desire.