This supposedly immersive adaptation of George Orwell’s dystopian classic by Adam Taub boils the story down to its bare bones and enlists the audience as dumb extras. We’re potential recruits to the Ministry of Truth in totalitarian Oceania, herded from room to room in Hackney Town Hall by hatchet-faced, boiler-suited apparatchiks to witness Orwell’s hero Winston Smith get his comeuppance for “thoughtcrime”.
Frankly, the 1937 art deco architecture and interiors of the venue are far more interesting than the performance, co-directed by Jem Wall and Richard Hahlo for Pure Expression, a company that specialises in immersive shows in buildings that aren't usually used for theatre shows. We start off in a bar where Victory Gin and Tonics or Negronis are on offer, while a lounge singer belts out post-war songs including an anthem for Oceania set to the tune of Que Sera Sera. Not what Orwell imagined, perhaps, but we are where we are.
