Sophie Ward will take the role of Margaret Mond—the regional world controller for western Europe—in Touring Consortium Theatre Company and Northampton Royal and Derngate’s new adaptation of Aldous Huxley’s novel Brave New World.
The character is a man in the novel. Dawn King, who has adapted the story, said, “I took this decision primarily because as a feminist I wanted to increase the gender equality of the show. I also felt that having a female world controller of Western Europe is more representative of our world today, and of a world of the future.
“In the novel, the character is called Mustapha Mond but in my adaptation I chose the name Margaret for its obvious allusions.
“I think Sophie Ward is a great choice to play the role because Mond is a person who has to make hard decisions, has a strong sense of her own personal morality and has real steely authority—qualities I think Sophie will accentuate.”
She added, “Huxley's novel is more than 80 years old but his vision of the future is shockingly familiar. In many ways, we already live in Brave New World: a glittering dystopia built on inequality, where people keep themselves distracted with empty pleasures, chemical stimulants and consumer goods
“Adapting this huge work for the stage has been as tough and stimulating as anything I've ever done and a huge pleasure.”
Sophie Ward has had regular roles in the series Land Girls, Heartbeat and Holby City. Her theatre work includes the tour of Agatha Christie’s Go Back For Murder in 2013 and the tour of Christopher Hampton’s Les Liaisons Dangereuses.
Brave New World was published in 1932 and is widely recognised as one of the most important novels of the 20th century. It is set 600 years in the future when humans are created and conditioned in a lab according to a strict caste system.
Royal and Derngate artistic director James Dacre directs. He commented, “asking whether it’s better to be free and unhappy or to live in forced happiness, incapable of accepting freedom, our version of Brave New World will explore the ways that we currently live our lives, imagining how tomorrow’s world might look as a consequence of today's choices.”
Design is by Naomi Dawson. Original music will be by British band These New Puritans.
Brave New World runs at Royal and Derngate from Friday 4 September until Saturday 26 September. It then tours to Edinburgh, Oxford, Nottingham, Cheltenham, Wolverhampton, Darlington, Blackpool and Bradford.