Headlong’s Robert Icke and Duncan Macmillan talk Orwell and Nineteen Eighty-Four
in Adaptation, Directors, Playwrights, Political Theatre
18th October 2013
INTERVIEW: ROBERT ICKE and DUNCAN MACMILLAN
The director and playwright talk to Dominic Cavendish about their much acclaimed adaptation of George Orwell’s classic Nineteen Eighty-Four for Headlong theatre. This co-production with the Nottingham Playhouse is currently touring. Substantial extract. Recording quality: variable. Recorded in a south London cafe, 25 September.
I remember saying to the estate at the start: If you wanted to have the experience of what honey was like one way of doing it would be to draw a picture of a jar of honey, which would be fine and not inaccurate – but if you did a production of Nineteen Eighty-Four that was focused mainly on blue overalls, peeling walls and dry ice that was the equivalent of drawing a jar of honey and what you really want to do is open the jar and say, Taste this – this is brilliant!
