''Nineteen Eighty-Four'' is a

British television Television broadcasts in the United Kingdom began in 1932, however, regular broadcasts would only begin four years later. Television began as a public service which was free of advertising, which followed the first demonstration of a transm ...

adaptation of the 1949 novel of the same name by

George Orwell Eric Arthur Blair (25 June 1903 – 21 January 1950) was an English novelist, poet, essayist, journalist, and critic who wrote under the pen name of George Orwell. His work is characterised by lucid prose, social criticism, opposition to a ...

, originally broadcast on

BBC Television BBC Television is a service of the BBC. The corporation has operated a Public service broadcasting in the United Kingdom, public broadcast television service in the United Kingdom, under the terms of a royal charter, since 1 January 1927. It p ...

as part of '' BBC Sunday-Night Theatre'' on 12 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 opp ...

, 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. It starred

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 f ...

(as Winston Smith),

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 BB ...

Donald Pleasence Donald Henry Pleasence (; 5 October 1919 – 2 February 1995) was an English actor. He was known for his "bald head and intense, staring eyes," and played more than 250 stage, film, and television roles across a nearly sixty-year career. Pleas ...

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 ...

. 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 filmmaking 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 (18 April 1922 – 29 October 2006) was a Manx screenwriter and author, whose career spanned more than 50 years, between 1946 and 1997. Predominantly a writer of thrillers that used science-fiction and horror elemen ...

, 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 writer Nigel Kneale for BBC Television. An intelligent and highly moral British scientist, Quatermass is a pioneer of the British space programme, heading the British ...

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, filmmaker, screenwriter and producer who worked predominantly in British television, excl ...

, perhaps the

BBC The British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) is a British public service broadcaster headquartered at Broadcasting House in London, England. Originally established in 1922 as the British Broadcasting Company, it evolved into its current sta ...

's best producer-director of the 1950s who was always adventurous artistically and technically. Cartier, a veteran of the UFA film studios in 1930s

Germany Germany, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It lies between the Baltic Sea and the North Sea to the north and the Alps to the south. Its sixteen States of Germany, constituent states have a total popu ...

who had fled the

Nazi Nazism (), formally named National Socialism (NS; , ), is the far-right politics, far-right Totalitarianism, totalitarian socio-political ideology and practices associated with Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party (NSDAP) in Germany. During H ...

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 Cartier's work on Quatermass that had prompted the BBC's Head of Drama, Michael Barry, to ask him to work on an adaptation of the novel, having shown his abilities with literary sources in a version of ''

Wuthering Heights ''Wuthering Heights'' is the only novel by the English author Emily Brontë, initially published in 1847 under her pen name "Ellis Bell". It concerns two families of the landed gentry living on the West Yorkshire moors, the Earnshaws and the ...

'', 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. Initially making his mark as a critic at ''The Observer'', he praised John Osborne's ''Look Back in Anger'' (1956) and encouraged the emerging wave ...

having apparently originally been keen on adapting the work. The first version of the script, produced in late 1953, was written by Hugh Faulks, 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 worked with the I ...

, 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 was taken by

, 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

, 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

, who had starred in the Kneale/Cartier ''Wuthering Heights'', as Julia, and

as O'Brien. Wilfrid Brambell, 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 a ...

'' and as

Paul McCartney Sir James Paul McCartney (born 18 June 1942) is an English singer, songwriter and musician who gained global fame with the Beatles, for whom he played bass guitar and the piano, and shared primary songwriting and lead vocal duties with John ...

'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 an entertainment and sports venue in North London, situated between Wood Green and Muswell Hill in the London Borough of Haringey. A listed building, Grade II listed building, it is built on the site of Tottenham Wood and th ...

(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 Public university, public research university and the largest university in the United Kingdom by List of universities in the United Kingdom by enrolment, number of students. The majority of the OU's undergraduate ...

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'' in 1965, these scenes were filmed on the demolition site that became

BBC Television Centre Television Centre (TVC), formerly known as BBC Television Centre, is a building complex in White City, London, White City, West London, which was the headquarters of BBC Television from 1960 to 2013, when BBC Television moved to Broadcasting H ...

. 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 near Euston Station. History Tavistock Square was built shortly after 1806 by the property developer James Burton and the master builder Thomas Cubitt for Franc ...

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 contradictor ...

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 (newspaper format), tabloid format. Published in London, it is the flagship of Express Newspapers, owned by publisher Reach plc. It was first ...

'' 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, Kent, Herne and Reculver and is part of the City of Canterbury loca ...

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 Newspaper#Daily, daily Newspaper#National, national newspaper based in London. It began in 1785 under the title ''The Daily Universal Register'', adopting its modern name on 1 January 1788. ''The Times'' and its si ...

'' 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 Manchester in 1821 as ''The Manchester Guardian'' and changed its name in 1959, followed by a move to London. Along with its sister paper, ''The Guardian Weekly'', ''The Guardi ...

'' reviewer defended the BBC for screening the drama, while ''

The Daily Worker The ''Daily Worker'' was a newspaper published in Chicago founded by communists, socialists, union members, and other activists. Publication began in 1924. It generally reflected the prevailing views of members of the Communist Party USA (CPU ...

'', 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, expressed as a single sentence, tabled by a member of Parliament, which the Government (in charge of parliamentary business) has not yet scheduled for debate. Hi ...

s and amendments tabled in 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 British Labour Party politician, journalist, and novelist from Wales who represented Coventry constituencies in the House of Commons for over 30 years, from 1945 until his death. ...

, Leslie Plummer Anthony Greenwood (all Labour) and Beverley Baxter (Conservative). (As for the last citation: ''

'', 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 and

Prince Philip Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh (born Prince Philip of Greece and Denmark, later Philip Mountbatten; 10 June 19219 April 2021), was the husband of Queen Elizabeth II. As such, he was the consort of the British monarch from h ...

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. 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 language, Greek πᾶν "all" + ὅραμα "view") is any Obtuse angle, wide-angle view or representation of a physical space, whether in painting, drawing, photography (panoramic photography), film, seismic image ...

'' 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 ceremony marks the formal investiture of a monarch with regal power using a crown. In addition to the crowning, this ceremony may include the presentation of other items of regalia, and other rituals such as the taking of special v ...

the previous year. At the time, television images could only be preserved on

film A film, also known as a movie or motion picture, is a work of visual art that simulates experiences and otherwise communicates ideas, stories, perceptions, emotions, or atmosphere through the use of moving images that are generally, sinc ...

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 1940s ...

" in the UK and " kinescoping" in the

USA The United States of America (USA), also known as the United States (U.S.) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It is a federal republic of 50 states and a federal capital district, Washington, D.C. The 48 contiguous ...

) 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. Cushing felt, however, that this second performance 'lacked the spontaneity and inspiration of the first, suffering from the furore provoked during those three intervening days.'

''The Goon Show'' parody

Spike Milligan Terence Alan "Spike" Milligan (16 April 1918 – 27 February 2002) was an Irish comedian, writer, musician, poet, playwright and actor. The son of an English mother and Irish father, he was born in British Raj, British India, where he spent his ...

wrote a

parody A parody is a creative work designed to imitate, comment on, and/or mock its subject by means of satire, satirical or irony, ironic imitation. Often its subject is an Originality, original work or some aspect of it (theme/content, author, style, e ...

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 ...

'' entitled ''1985'', broadcast on 4 January 1955. The cast of characters included Worker 846 Winston Seagoon (

Harry Secombe Sir Harry Donald Secombe (8 September 1921 – 11 April 2001) was a Welsh actor, comedian, singer and television presenter. Secombe was a member of the British radio comedy programme ''The Goon Show'' (1951–1960), playing many characters, mos ...

), 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''. Sellers featured on a number of hit comi ...

) and Worker 213 Eccles (Milligan); Big Brother was replaced by the Big Brother Corporation (i.e. the

) and Goldstein's revolution by Horace Minikstein's Independent Television Army (i.e. the

Independent Television Authority The Independent Television Authority (ITA) was an agency created by the Television Act 1954 ( 2 & 3 Eliz. 2. c. 55) to supervise the creation of " Independent Television" (ITV), the first commercial television network in the United Kingdom. The ...

). Jokes included such stabs at the BBC as: Announcer (Sellers): ''"Attention BBC workers! Lunch is now being served in the BBC Canteen. Doctors are standing by."'' Seagoon is tortured in Room 101 by being forced to listen to clips from ''

Ray's a Laugh ''Ray's a Laugh'' was a British BBC Radio comedy series starring Ted Ray (comedian), Ted Ray which ran from 1949 to 1961. According to latter-day historians of the era, the show was "hugely popular with the British public" and "one of the major ...

'', '' Life with the Lyons'' and the singing of

. Unlike the original script, Seagoon is freed from Room 101 and the ITA overthrows the BBC after a three-day phone call and a £10 bribe. However, when Seagoon hears the ITA's output, he wants the BBC brought back. The programme was such a success that the script was performed again on 8 February 1955. This was not a repeat – it was a new broadcast of the same script with minor changes. One change was the recorded addition of John Snagge as the BBC announcer previously portrayed by Sellers. The first version exists in pristine form in the BBC archives, the second performance only as a lower-quality off-air recording, which excludes the first five minutes of the programme and both musical interludes, preserving about 18 minutes of material.

Legacy

It was twenty-three years before the 35mm telerecording of the 16 December performance received a repeat broadcast, in 1977. Another proposed repeat as part of the BBC's fiftieth anniversary of television celebrations in 1986 was overruled by the producers of the 1984

John Hurt Sir John Vincent Hurt (22 January 1940 – 28 January 2017) was an English actor. Regarded as one of the finest actors of his time and known for the "most distinctive voice in Cinema of the United Kingdom, Britain", he was described by David Ly ...

Richard Burton Richard Burton (; born Richard Walter Jenkins Jr.; 10 November 1925 – 5 August 1984) was a Welsh actor. Noted for his mellifluous baritone voice, Burton established himself as a formidable Shakespearean actor in the 1950s and gave a memor ...

feature film A feature film or feature-length film (often abbreviated to feature), also called a theatrical film, is a film (Film, motion picture, "movie" or simply “picture”) with a running time long enough to be considered the principal or sole present ...

, who felt that earlier versions would affect income for their film. The BBC was permitted to show the play again in 1994 on

BBC Two BBC Two is a British free-to-air Public service broadcasting in the United Kingdom, public broadcast television channel owned and operated by the BBC. It is the corporation's second flagship channel, and it covers a wide range of subject matte ...

, as a tribute to the recently deceased Cartier and again in June 2003 on digital station

BBC Four BBC Four is a British free-to-air Public service broadcasting in the United Kingdom, public broadcast television channel owned and operated by the BBC. It was launched on 2 March 2002

as part of the

centenary celebrations. Kneale's adaptation was produced again by the BBC, with some modifications in 1965. Starring

David Buck David Keith Rodney Buck (17 October 1936 – 27 January 1989) was an English actor and author. Biography Buck was born in London, the son of Joseph Buck and Enid Marguerite (née Webb). He starred in many television productions from 1959 unti ...

Joseph O'Conor Joseph O'Conor (14 February 1916 – 21 January 2001) was an Irish actor and playwright. Early years O'Conor was born in DublinAlan Strachan ''The Independent'', 2 February 2001Stephen GilbertObituary ''The Guardian'', 25 January 2001 on ...

Jane Merrow Jane Meirowsky (born 1941), known professionally as Jane Merrow, is an English actress who has been active from the 1960s in both Britain and the United States. Early years Merrow was born in 1941 in Hertfordshire to an English mother and Germ ...

and

Cyril Shaps Cyril Leonard Shaps (13 October 1923 – 1 January 2003) was an English actor of radio, television and film, with a career spanning over seven decades. Early radio Shaps was born in the East End of London to Polish-Jewish parents; his father ...

, it was broadcast in

BBC2 BBC Two is a British free-to-air public broadcast television channel owned and operated by the BBC. It is the corporation's second flagship channel, and it covers a wide range of subject matter, incorporating genres such as comedy, drama and ...

's ''

Theatre 625 ''Theatre 625'' is a British television drama anthology series, produced by the BBC and transmitted on BBC2 from 1964 to 1968. It was one of the first regular programmes in the line-up of the channel, and the title referred to its production an ...

'' anthology series as part of a season of Orwell adaptations sub-titled ''The World of George Orwell'', on 28 November 1965. Long believed lost, on 12 September 2010 it was announced that a copy had been located at the American

Library of Congress The Library of Congress (LOC) is a research library in Washington, D.C., serving as the library and research service for the United States Congress and the ''de facto'' national library of the United States. It also administers Copyright law o ...

, although an approximately seven-minute segment in the middle was unrecoverable from the

NTSC NTSC (from National Television System Committee) is the first American standard for analog television, published and adopted in 1941. In 1961, it was assigned the designation System M. It is also known as EIA standard 170. In 1953, a second ...

video tape recording. It was recovered amongst a hoard of over 80 lost British television episodes dating from 1957 to 1970. In 1965, a radio adaptation was broadcast on the

BBC Home Service The BBC Home Service was a national and regional radio station that broadcast from 1939 until 1967, when it was replaced by BBC Radio 4. History 1922–1939: Interwar period Between the early 1920s and the outbreak of World War II, the BBC ...

with

Patrick Troughton Patrick George Troughton (; 25 March 1920 – 28 March 1987) was an English actor. He became best known for his roles in television, most notably starring as the Second Doctor, second incarnation of The Doctor (Doctor Who), the Doctor in the lo ...

, soon to become the

Second Doctor The Second Doctor is an incarnation of The Doctor (Doctor Who), the Doctor, the protagonist of the British Science fiction on television, science fiction television series ''Doctor Who''. He was portrayed by actor Patrick Troughton. Out of his 1 ...

in ''

Doctor Who ''Doctor Who'' is a British science fiction television series broadcast by the BBC since 1963. The series, created by Sydney Newman, C. E. Webber and Donald Wilson (writer and producer), Donald Wilson, depicts the adventures of an extraterre ...

''. This radio version was properly archived and has survived. Scenes from ''Nineteen Eighty-Four'', along with the 1954 adaptation of ''Animal Farm'', were featured in "The Two Winstons", the final episode of

Simon Schama Sir Simon Michael Schama ( ; born 13 February 1945) is an English historian and television presenter. He specialises in art history, Dutch history, Jewish history, and French history. He is a professor of history and art history at Columbia Uni ...

's program '' A History of Britain''.

Broadcast history

, 12 December 1954, live – not recorded. * BBC Television, 16 December 1954, live – exists as a

35mm film 35 mm may refer to: Film * 135 film, a type of still photography format commonly referred to as 35 mm film * 35 mm movie film 35 mm film is a film gauge used in filmmaking, and the film standard. In motion pictures that record on ...

. *

, 28 November 1965, new production of an updated version of the 1954 script. Exists as an NTSC videotape copy, although 7 minutes is missing. * BBC2, 3 August 1977, repeat of 16 December 1954 telerecording. * BBC Two, 1 July 1994, repeat of 16 December 1954 telerecording, commemorating the death of Rudolph Cartier. *

BBC Four BBC Four is a British free-to-air Public service broadcasting in the United Kingdom, public broadcast television channel owned and operated by the BBC. It was launched on 2 March 2002

, 14 June 2003, repeat of 16 December 1954 telerecording. *

BBC Four BBC Four is a British free-to-air Public service broadcasting in the United Kingdom, public broadcast television channel owned and operated by the BBC. It was launched on 2 March 2002

, 17 November 2024, repeat of 16 December 1954 telerecording.

Home media

In March 2014, the play was included in a "Classic Horror Volume 1" DVD release alongside ''

Nosferatu ''Nosferatu: A Symphony of Horror'' () is a 1922 silent film, silent German Expressionism (cinema), German Expressionist vampire film directed by F. W. Murnau from a screenplay by Henrik Galeen. It stars Max Schreck as Count Orlok, a vampire who ...

'', '' Hunchback of Notre Dame'' and ''

The Phantom of the Opera The Phantom of the Opera may refer to: Novel * The Phantom of the Opera (novel), ''The Phantom of the Opera'' (novel), 1910 novel by Gaston Leroux Characters * Erik (The Phantom of the Opera), Erik (''The Phantom of the Opera''), the title char ...

''. In April 2022, the BFI released a standalone Blu-ray + DVD combo containing a new High Definition transfer of the play.

Bibliography

Books

*Fulton, Roger (1997). ''The Encyclopedia of TV Science Fiction'' (2nd ed.). London: Boxtree Books. . *Jacobs, Jason (2000). ''The Intimate Screen: Early British Television Drama'' (1st ed.).

Oxford Oxford () is a City status in the United Kingdom, cathedral city and non-metropolitan district in Oxfordshire, England, of which it is the county town. The city is home to the University of Oxford, the List of oldest universities in continuou ...

Oxford University Press Oxford University Press (OUP) is the publishing house of the University of Oxford. It is the largest university press in the world. Its first book was printed in Oxford in 1478, with the Press officially granted the legal right to print books ...

. .

Magazines

*Pixley, Andrew (Jan. 2003). Nineteen Eighty-Four: Big Brother is Watching You. ''

TV Zone ''TV Zone'' was a British magazine that was published every four weeks by Visual Imagination that covered cult television. Initially, it mostly covered science fiction, but branched out to cover other drama and comedy series. History ''TV Zone ...

'', p. 50-54.

References

External links

1984 (1954 version)
at the

Internet Movie Database IMDb, historically known as the Internet Movie Database, is an online database of information related to films, television series, podcasts, home videos, video games, and streaming content online – including cast, production crew and biograp ...

1984 (1965 version)
at the

Analysis and Production History at the 625Online sitePictorial Compendium entry from the Mausoleum Club website
(PDF file)

{{DEFAULTSORT:Nineteen Eighty-Four (Tv Programme) 1954 television plays 1965 television plays BBC television dramas British television plays Films directed by Rudolph Cartier Films about freedom of expression Television shows based on works by George Orwell Television shows based on British novels

Background

Cast and crew

Production

Reaction

''The Goon Show'' parody

Legacy

Broadcast history

Home media

Bibliography

Books

Magazines

See also

References

External links