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''Nineteen Eighty-Four'' is a
British television
Regular television broadcasts in the United Kingdom started in 1936 as a public service which was free of advertising, which followed the first demonstration of a transmitted moving image in 1926. Currently, the United Kingdom has a collection ...
adaptation of the 1949
novel of the same name by
George Orwell
Eric Arthur Blair (25 June 1903 – 21 January 1950), better known by his pen name George Orwell, was an English novelist, essayist, journalist, and critic. His work is characterised by lucid prose, social criticism, opposition to totalitar ...
, originally broadcast on
BBC Television
BBC Television is a service of the BBC. The corporation has operated a public broadcast television service in the United Kingdom, under the terms of a royal charter, since 1927. It produced television programmes from its own studios from 193 ...
in December 1954. The production proved to be hugely
controversial
Controversy is a state of prolonged public dispute or debate, usually concerning a matter of conflicting opinion or point of view. The word was coined from the Latin ''controversia'', as a composite of ''controversus'' – "turned in an opposite ...
, with questions asked in
Parliament
In modern politics, and history, a parliament is a legislative body of government. Generally, a modern parliament has three functions: Representation (politics), representing the Election#Suffrage, electorate, making laws, and overseeing ...
and many viewer complaints over its supposed subversive nature and horrific content. In a 2000 poll of industry experts conducted by the
British Film Institute
The British Film Institute (BFI) is a film and television charitable organisation which promotes and preserves film-making and television in the United Kingdom. The BFI uses funds provided by the National Lottery to encourage film production, ...
to determine the
100 Greatest British Television Programmes
The BFI TV 100 is a list of 100 television programmes or series that was compiled in 2000 by the British Film Institute (BFI), as chosen by a poll of industry professionals, with the aim to determine the best British television programmes of any ...
of the 20th century, ''Nineteen Eighty-Four'' was ranked in seventy-third position.
Background
Orwell's novel was adapted for television by
Nigel Kneale
Thomas Nigel Kneale (28 April 1922 – 29 October 2006) was a Manx screenwriter who wrote professionally for more than 50 years, was a winner of the Somerset Maugham Award, and was twice nominated for the BAFTA Award for Best British S ...
, one of the most prolific television scriptwriters of the time. The previous year he had created the character of Professor
Bernard Quatermass
Professor Bernard Quatermass is a fictional scientist, originally created by the writer Nigel Kneale for BBC Television. An intelligent and highly moral British scientist, Quatermass is a pioneer of the British space programme, heading the Brit ...
for the science-fiction serial ''
The Quatermass Experiment
''The Quatermass Experiment'' is a British science fiction serial broadcast by BBC Television during the summer of 1953 and re-staged by BBC Four in 2005. Set in the near future against the background of a British space programme, it tells th ...
''. The adaptation was produced and directed by the equally respected
Rudolph Cartier
Rudolph Cartier (born Rudolph Kacser, renamed himself in Germany to Rudolph Katscher;
17 April 1904 – 7 June 1994) was an Austrian television director, Filmmaking, filmmaker, screenwriter and Film producer, producer who worked predominantly i ...
, perhaps the
BBC #REDIRECT BBC #REDIRECT BBC
Here i going to introduce about the best teacher of my life b BALAJI sir. He is the precious gift that I got befor 2yrs . How has helped and thought all the concept and made my success in the 10th board exam. ...
...
's best producer-director of the 1950s who was always adventurous artistically and technically. Cartier, a veteran of the
UFA
Ufa ( ba, Өфө , Öfö; russian: Уфа́, r=Ufá, p=ʊˈfa) is the largest city and capital of Bashkortostan, Russia. The city lies at the confluence of the Belaya and Ufa rivers, in the centre-north of Bashkortostan, on hills forming the ...
film studios in 1930s
Germany
Germany,, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It is the second most populous country in Europe after Russia, and the most populous member state of the European Union. Germany is situated betwe ...
who had fled the
Nazi
Nazism ( ; german: Nazismus), the common name in English for National Socialism (german: Nationalsozialismus, ), is the far-right totalitarian political ideology and practices associated with Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party (NSDAP) in ...
regime for Britain in 1936, had worked with Kneale the previous year on ''The Quatermass Experiment'' and was a veteran of many television drama productions.
It was his work on Quatermass that had prompted the BBC's
Head of Drama,
Michael Barry, to ask Cartier to work on an adaptation of the novel, having shown his abilities with literary sources in a version of ''
Wuthering Heights
''Wuthering Heights'' is an 1847 novel by Emily Brontë, initially published under her pen name Ellis Bell. It concerns two families of the landed gentry living on the West Yorkshire moorland, moors, the Earnshaws and the Lintons, and their tur ...
'', again with Kneale handling the scripting. The BBC had purchased the rights to a television version of ''Nineteen Eighty-Four'' soon after its publication in 1949, with
Kenneth Tynan
Kenneth Peacock Tynan (2 April 1927 – 26 July 1980) was an English theatre critic and writer. Making his initial impact as a critic at ''The Observer'', he praised Osborne's ''Look Back in Anger'' (1956), and encouraged the emerging wave of ...
having apparently originally been keen on adapting the work. The first version of the script, produced in late 1953, was written by
Hugh Faulks
Hugh may refer to:
*Hugh (given name)
Noblemen and clergy French
* Hugh the Great (died 956), Duke of the Franks
* Hugh Magnus of France (1007–1025), co-King of France under his father, Robert II
* Hugh, Duke of Alsace (died 895), modern-day ...
, in consultation with Orwell's widow
Sonia Brownell
Sonia Mary Brownell (25 August 1918 – 11 December 1980), better known as Sonia Orwell, was the second wife of writer George Orwell. Sonia is believed to be the model for Julia, the heroine of ''Nineteen Eighty-Four''.
Sonia collaborated with ...
, but when Cartier joined in January 1954 he demanded that Kneale be allowed to handle the adaptation. This and other complexities of production meant that the April airdate – which would have been about 30 years before the novel was set – had to be postponed.
Cast and crew
The role of
Winston Smith Winston Smith may refer to:
People
* Winston Smith (artist) (born 1952), American artist
* Winston Smith (athlete) (born 1982), Olympic track and field athlete
* Winston Boogie Smith (born ), American man killed by law enforcement in 2021
* Winst ...
was taken by
Peter Cushing
Peter Wilton Cushing (26 May 1913 – 11 August 1994) was an English actor. His acting career spanned over six decades and included appearances in more than 100 films, as well as many television, stage, and radio roles. He achieved recognition ...
, one of his first major roles. Cartier cast him after having been impressed with his performance in a BBC production of ''Anastasia'' the previous year. Cushing went on to become a film star, as would his co-star
Donald Pleasence
Donald Henry Pleasence (; 5 October 1919 – 2 February 1995) was an English actor. He began his career on stage in the West End before transitioning into a screen career, where he played numerous supporting and character roles including RAF ...
, who played Syme. Pleasence was the only member of the cast present in the
1956 feature film adaptation of the story, playing an amalgamation of Syme and Parsons with the latter's name.
Other cast members included
Yvonne Mitchell
Yvonne Mitchell (born Yvonne Frances Joseph; 7 July 1915 – 24 March 1979) was an English actress and author. After beginning her acting career in theatre, Mitchell progressed to films in the late 1940s. Her roles include Julia in the 1954 BBC ...
, who had starred in the Kneale/Cartier ''Wuthering Heights'', as Julia, and
André Morell
Cecil André Mesritz (20 August 1909 – 28 November 1978), known professionally as André Morell, was an English actor. He appeared frequently in theatre, film and on television from the 1930s to the 1970s. His best known screen roles were as ...
as
O'Brien.
Wilfrid Brambell
Henry Wilfrid Brambell (22 March 1912 – 18 January 1985) was an Irish television and film actor, best remembered for playing the grubby rag-and-bone man Albert Steptoe alongside Harry H. Corbett in the long-running BBC television sitcom '' ...
, later known for his roles in ''
Steptoe and Son
''Steptoe and Son'' is a British sitcom written by Ray Galton and Alan Simpson about a father-and-son rag-and-bone business in 26a Oil Drum Lane, a fictional street in Shepherd's Bush, London. Four series were broadcast by the BBC in black and ...
'' and as
Paul McCartney
Sir James Paul McCartney (born 18 June 1942) is an English singer, songwriter and musician who gained worldwide fame with the Beatles, for whom he played bass guitar and shared primary songwriting and lead vocal duties with John Lennon. One ...
's grandfather in ''
A Hard Day's Night'', appeared in two roles, as the old man Winston speaks with in the pub and as a prisoner later on when Winston is incarcerated. Nigel Kneale who had briefly acted in the 1940s before turning to scriptwriting, had a small voice-over role as an announcer. The face of
Big Brother was
Roy Oxley, a member of the BBC design department whose inclusion was something of an in-joke on the part of the production team.
The composer of the incidental music for the programme was John Hotchkis, who insisted on a larger than usual orchestra to perform the piece.
Production
Until the early 1960s, the vast majority of the BBC's television was performed live. Nonetheless, there was a certain degree of pre-shooting in the form of
inserts on film, which could be played into the studio and broadcast as part of the play to cover changes of scene or show location material which would have been impossible to mount live in the studio. Initial filming for ''Nineteen Eighty-Four'' took place on 10 November 1954 in Studio B of
Alexandra Palace
Alexandra Palace is a Grade II listed entertainment and sports venue in London, situated between Wood Green and Muswell Hill in the London Borough of Haringey. It is built on the site of Tottenham Wood and the later Tottenham Wood Farm. Origi ...
(even by then all but abandoned as a venue for shooting drama, although it housed the news and later the
Open University
The Open University (OU) is a British public research university and the largest university in the United Kingdom by number of students. The majority of the OU's undergraduate students are based in the United Kingdom and principally study off- ...
for the next thirty years), with footage of the Two Minutes' Hate and some of the canteen scenes being filmed there.
Further location shooting took place on 18 November which were exterior scenes featuring Smith's travels in the proletarian sector. According to Peter Cushing, speaking on ''
Late Night Line-Up
''Late Night Line-Up'' was a pioneering British television discussion programme broadcast on BBC2 between 1964 and 1972.
Background
From its launch in April 1964, BBC2 began each evening's transmission with a programme called ''Line-Up'', a ten- ...
'' in 1965, these scenes were filmed on the demolition site that became
BBC Television Centre
Television Centre (TVC) is a building complex in White City, London, White City, West London, that was the headquarters of BBC Television between 1960 and 2013. After a refurbishment, the complex reopened in 2017 with three studios in use for ...
. Following the filming, rehearsals for the cast began at Mary Ward Settlement,
Tavistock Place
Tavistock Square is a public square in Bloomsbury, in the London Borough of Camden.
History
Tavistock Square was built shortly after 1806 by the property developer James Burton and the master builder Thomas Cubitt for Francis Russell, 5th Duke ...
from 22 November (moving to
60 Paddington Street from 29 November). During these rehearsals, the cast memorised their lines and cues as important in a live television production as in a stage play.
The cast and crew moved to Studio D at the BBC's
Lime Grove Studios
Lime Grove Studios was a film, and later television, studio complex in Shepherd's Bush, West London, England.
The complex was built by the Gaumont Film Company in 1915. It was situated in Lime Grove, a residential street in Shepherd's Bush, and ...
on Saturday 11 December 1954 for a full camera rehearsal and run-through. Rehearsals continued the following day until shortly before transmission, which began at 20:37 Sunday 12 December and continued for the best part of two hours.
Kneale's script was a largely faithful adaptation of the novel as far as was practical. The writer made some small additions, the most notable being the creation of a sequence in which O'Brien observes Julia at work in PornoSec and reads a small segment from one of the erotic novels being written by the machines.
Reaction
The play provoked something of an upset. There were complaints about the "horrific" content (particularly the
Room 101
The Ministry of Truth, the Ministry of Peace, the Ministry of Love, and the Ministry of Plenty are the four ministries of the government of Oceania in the 1949 dystopian novel ''Nineteen Eighty-Four'', by George Orwell.
The use of contradictory ...
scene where Smith is threatened with torture by rats) and the "subversive" nature of the play. Most were worried by the depiction of a totalitarian regime controlling the population's freedom of thought. There was also a report in the ''
Daily Express
The ''Daily Express'' is a national daily United Kingdom middle-market newspaper printed in tabloid format. Published in London, it is the flagship of Express Newspapers, owned by publisher Reach plc. It was first published as a broadsheet i ...
'' newspaper of 42-year-old Beryl Merfin of
Herne Bay
Herne Bay is a seaside town on the north coast of Kent in South East England. It is north of Canterbury and east of Whitstable. It neighbours the ancient villages of Herne and Reculver and is part of the City of Canterbury local government ...
collapsing and dying as she watched the production, under the headline "Wife dies as she watches", allegedly from the shock of what she had seen. An anonymous reviewer in ''
The Times
''The Times'' is a British daily national newspaper based in London. It began in 1785 under the title ''The Daily Universal Register'', adopting its current name on 1 January 1788. ''The Times'' and its sister paper ''The Sunday Times'' (fou ...
'' wrote: "Inevitably, in a dramatic presentation of the book much of the irony is lost; and the weakness of this television version was that concentrating on the action it reduced the ideological explanation so drastically that it robbed the story of at least half its power". It was a "pictorial simplification" of "Orwell's vision". The writer, however, admired the performances of Cushing, Mitchell and Morell. ''
The Manchester Guardian
''The Guardian'' is a British daily newspaper. It was founded in 1821 as ''The Manchester Guardian'', and changed its name in 1959. Along with its sister papers ''The Observer'' and ''The Guardian Weekly'', ''The Guardian'' is part of the Gu ...
'' reviewer defended the BBC for screening the drama, while ''
The Daily Worker
The ''Daily Worker'' was a newspaper published in New York City by the Communist Party USA, a formerly Comintern-affiliated organization. Publication began in 1924. While it generally reflected the prevailing views of the party, attempts were ...
'', a communist newspaper, described it as a "Tory guttersnipe’s view of socialism".
Political reaction was divided, with several
early day motion
In the Westminster parliamentary system, an early day motion (EDM) is a Motion (parliamentary procedure), motion, expressed as a single sentence, Table (parliamentary procedure), tabled by Member of Parliament, members of Parliament that formally ...
s and amendments tabled in the Parliament. One motion, signed by five MPs, deplored "the tendency, evident in recent British Broadcasting Corporation television programmes, notably on Sunday evenings, to pander to sexual and sadistic tastes".
[The MPs were Kenneth Thompson, Eveline Hill, Dudley Williams, William Steward and Austen Hudson (all Conservative). ] An amendment was tabled which sought to make the motion now deplore "the tendency of honourable members to attack the courage and enterprise of the British Broadcasting Corporation in presenting plays and programmes capable of appreciation by adult minds, on Sunday evenings and other occasions." It was signed by five MPs.
[The MPs were Arthur Palmer, ]Maurice Edelman
Israel Maurice Edelman (2 March 1911 – 14 December 1975) was a Wales-born British Labour Party politician and novelist who represented Coventry constituencies in the House of Commons for over 30 years.
Early life
Maurice Edelman was born i ...
, Leslie Plummer
Sir Leslie Arthur Plummer (2 June 1901 – 15 April 1963), known to his friends as Dick Plummer,Letter from John Strachey, ''The Times'', 19 April 1963. was a British farmer, newspaper executive and politician. He was in charge of the Overseas ...
Anthony Greenwood
Arthur William James Anthony Greenwood, Baron Greenwood of Rossendale, (14 September 1911 – 12 April 1982) was a prominent British Labour Party politician in the 1950s and 1960s.
Background and education
The son of Arthur Greenwood ( Depu ...
(all Labour) and Beverley Baxter
Sir Arthur Beverley Baxter, FRSL (8 January 189126 April 1964) was a journalist and politician. Born in Toronto, Canada, he worked in the United Kingdom for the '' Daily Express'' and as a theatre critic for the London ''Evening Standard'' and ...
(Conservative). (As for the last citation: ''The Times
''The Times'' is a British daily national newspaper based in London. It began in 1785 under the title ''The Daily Universal Register'', adopting its current name on 1 January 1788. ''The Times'' and its sister paper ''The Sunday Times'' (fou ...
'', 15 December 1954) Another amendment added "but is thankful that the freedom of the individual still permits viewers to switch off and, due to the foresight of her Majesty's Government, will soon permit a switch-over to be made to more appropriate programmes."
[Tabled by Charles Taylor, Walter Robert Dempster Perkins (both Conservatives) and others (as before).] A second motion signed by six MPs, applauded "the sincere attempts of the BBC. to bring home to the British people the logical and soul-destroying consequences of the surrender of their freedom" and calling attention to the fact that "many of the inhuman practices depicted in the play ''Nineteen Eighty-Four'' are already in common use under totalitarian régimes.", Even
the Queen
In the English-speaking world, The Queen most commonly refers to:
* Elizabeth II (1926–2022), Queen of the United Kingdom and other Commonwealth realms from 1952 until her death
The Queen may also refer to:
* Camilla, Queen Consort (born 1947), ...
and
Prince Philip
Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh (born Prince Philip of Greece and Denmark, later Philip Mountbatten; 10 June 1921 – 9 April 2021) was the husband of Queen Elizabeth II. As such, he served as the consort of the British monarch from E ...
made it known that they had watched and enjoyed the play.
Amidst objections the BBC went ahead with a complete live restaging on Thursday 16 December, although the decision went to the
Board of Governors
A board of directors (commonly referred simply as the board) is an executive committee that jointly supervises the activities of an organization, which can be either a for-profit or a nonprofit organization such as a business, nonprofit organi ...
, which narrowly voted in favour of the second performance. This was introduced live on camera by Head of Drama
Michael Barry, who had already appeared on the topical news programme ''
Panorama
A panorama (formed from Greek πᾶν "all" + ὅραμα "view") is any wide-angle view or representation of a physical space, whether in painting, drawing, photography, film, seismic images, or 3D modeling. The word was originally coined in ...
'' on 15 December to defend the production.
The seven million viewers who watched the Thursday performance was the largest television audience in the UK since the
Coronation
A coronation is the act of placement or bestowal of a coronation crown, crown upon a monarch's head. The term also generally refers not only to the physical crowning but to the whole ceremony wherein the act of crowning occurs, along with the ...
the previous year.
At the time, television images could only be preserved on
film
A film also called a movie, motion picture, moving picture, picture, photoplay or (slang) flick is a work of visual art that simulates experiences and otherwise communicates ideas, stories, perceptions, feelings, beauty, or atmosphere ...
by using a special recording apparatus (known as "
telerecording
Kinescope , shortened to kine , also known as telerecording in Britain, is a recording of a television program on motion picture film, directly through a lens focused on the screen of a video monitor. The process was pioneered during the 1940 ...
" in the UK and "
kinescoping" in the
USA
The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territori ...
) but was used sparingly in Britain for preservation and not for pre-recording. It is thus the second performance, one of the earliest surviving British television dramas, that is preserved in the archives.
''The Goon Show'' parody
Spike Milligan
Terence Alan "Spike" Milligan (16 April 1918 – 27 February 2002) was an Irish actor, comedian, writer, musician, poet, and playwright. The son of an English mother and Irish father, he was born in British Raj, British Colonial India, where h ...
wrote a
parody
A parody, also known as a spoof, a satire, a send-up, a take-off, a lampoon, a play on (something), or a caricature, is a creative work designed to imitate, comment on, and/or mock its subject by means of satiric or ironic imitation. Often its subj ...
of ''Nineteen Eighty-Four'' for ''
The Goon Show
''The Goon Show'' is a British radio comedy programme, originally produced and broadcast by the BBC Home Service from 1951 to 1960, with occasional repeats on the BBC Light Programme. The first series, broadcast from 28 May to 20 September 19 ...
'' entitled ''1985'', broadcast on 4 January 1955. The cast of characters included Worker 846 Winston Seagoon (
Harry Secombe
Sir Harold Donald Secombe (8 September 1921 – 11 April 2001) was a Welsh comedian, actor, singer and television presenter. Secombe was a member of the British radio comedy programme ''The Goon Show'' (1951–1960), playing many characters, m ...
), Miss Sfnut (
Peter Sellers
Peter Sellers (born Richard Henry Sellers; 8 September 1925 – 24 July 1980) was an English actor and comedian. He first came to prominence performing in the BBC Radio comedy series ''The Goon Show'', featured on a number of hit comic songs ...
) and Worker 213 Eccles (Milligan); Big Brother was replaced by the Big Brother Corporation (i.e. the
BBC #REDIRECT BBC #REDIRECT BBC
Here i going to introduce about the best teacher of my life b BALAJI sir. He is the precious gift that I got befor 2yrs . How has helped and thought all the concept and made my success in the 10th board exam. ...
...
) and Goldstein's revolution by