BALLET REVIEW: Classic novel 1984 as relevant as ever

THE EYES have it in George Orwell's dystopian nightmare which is as brutally shocking as ever in the hands of the brilliant Northern Ballet.

Orwell may never have dreamed of his dystopian classic becoming a ballet, but here we get a real life 101 drama for the call-monitoring, e-mail screening, CCTV society of today.

The all-seeing eyes - ominously like those of British would-be fascist fuhrer Oswald Mosley - come at you on a huge screen in a stunning visual display, while Alex Baranowski's pulsating other-wordly music, played by a live orchestra, hammers home the messages of control and conformity.

The fantastic set, costumes and lighting design - through the combined efforts Andrzej Goulding, Simon Daw and Chris Davey - creates just the right atmosphere to chillingly envisage Orwell's harrowing vision of a future Oceania society where a power-mad dictatorship propels the world towards never-ending war and seeks to suck the life blood out of everyone.

The brainwashing in the daily “two minutes of hate” is a chilling echo of the media demonisisation of whatever it sees as  “the other” that we are presented with each day.

Orwell's bleak future was written about his fears of a Stalinist totalitarianism in post-war Russia but is also relevant to the dangers from the rise of 21st century neo-Nazis or from our modern global village, where we are scrutinised by government and employers every moment.

Choreographer and director Jonathan Watkins produces some thrilling dancing, stunningly interpreting the robotic, alienated movements of the Party members in the Ministry of Truth, while contrasting it with the uninhibited freedom found in the Proles, the working class of Oceania deemed unworthy of constant surveillance.

Instead of Stalin’s hammer and sickle, we get a giant projected fist, but is it a symbol of hate or resistance?

Of course, as with any ballet, it helps to know the story.

Winston Smith’s job to is rewrite the past to control the future, serving Big Brother, who watches every citizen’s move.

Smith (Tobias Batley) rebels against The Party rulers and falls in love with a fellow-worker Julia (Martha Leebolt) from the Anti-Sex League, but the freedom they find does not last.

There’s no happy ending.

But as Orwell writes, hope lies with the Proles.

Smith and his lover joyously begin their affair in the countryside, with a beautifully erotic sequence between the dancers.

They conduct their outlawed love affair in the run-down antique shop of Mr Charrington (Hiranao Takahashi), where their love is expressed in intricate, intimate duets, full of abandon and spontaneity, reminiscent of the Proles.

Party string-puller O’Brien (Javier Torres) makes a slick betrayer, who fools Winston into believing he wants a better world and the dancing is uniformly superb.

As the inevitable betrayal arrives, Watkins perfectly captures the essence of Orwell’s deeply political themes by contrasting the humanity of the lovers with the grotesque inhumanity of a system which puts people second.