George Orwell, adapted for the stage by Tatty Hennessy
Leeds Playhouse & Stratford East production, with Nottingham Playhouse
Leeds Playhouse, Quarry auditorium
March 12-29, 2025; 2hrs 30mins
The cast of Animal Farm - and some prophetic commandments. All pics: Kirsten McTernan
Amy Leach’s production of George Orwell’s political fable Animal Farm arrives at Leeds Playhouse
garlanded with five-star reviews and an Olivier nomination.
The Leeds audience – a full house covering all ages – were duly on their feet at the end at the end of a play that director Leach admits is “difficult and challenging”.
There is certainly no doubting the passion and creativity that Leach, set and costume designer Hayley
Grindle and the entire creative team have put into bringing to life Tatty Hennessey’s script, created with the National Youth Theatre.
This is by no means a comfortable evening in the theatre, but the themes and brutality of the story add up to a five-star theatrical experience. The word ‘triumph’ springs to mind. Leach has almost removed the need for critics as this is about as good as it gets.
She says in the excellent director notes that the aim is to look at Orwell’s fable “through a contemporary lens”. Plays that try to find modern meaning in old plays sometimes take desperate measures to make the old relevant. That’s not the case here. Unfortunately the themes that emerge from Orwell’s story, such as inequality and diversity, are as relevant today as they were when the book was published 80 years ago; the world is not a fair place and the quest for power continues.
Hayley Grindle’s harsh industrial landscape, with its echoes of abattoirs and factory farming, is a long
way from the image of Old MacDonald’s Farm and thankfully there are no actors wearing cute animal
masks. These animals are human with all the traits, good and bad, of humans.
A cruel and unjust society is exposed in which animals are labourers, nothing more. A rebellion ousts
the farmer and the animals become farmers themselves. But the quest for power and jealousy among
the animals sees the good life turn bad.
It would be invidious to single out anyone from the uniformly excellent, large cast. This really is a team
effort with the words on the banner at the play’s end says it all: All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others...
Info and tickets here
