Adapted for the stage by award-winning playwright Dawn King with original new music from the ground breaking British band These New Puritans; Brave New World sees former Holby City star Sophie Ward take on the role of ‘Margaret Mond’ (a male character known as ‘Mustapha Mond’ in the original novel), while Olivier Award-winning Abigail McKern plays ‘Linda’ and William Postlethwaite (son of the late actor Pete) becomes ‘John the Savage’.
First published in 1932, Brave New World is widely considered to be one of the finest and most prophetic dystopian novels of the twentieth century, anticipating developments in reproductive technology, psychological manipulation and behavioural conditioning. Set 600 years in the future human life has been almost entirely industrialised, and humans are created and conditioned in a lab according to a strict caste system, in a World State whose motto is “Community, Identity, Stability”. Monogamy, the family unit and the ‘natural’ process of giving birth, are considered horrific and unnatural, and material comfort and physical pleasure - provided by the drug soma and recreational sex - represent society’s highest good.
Brave New World is the fifth Touring Consortium Theatre Company production funded by the Arts Council of England‘s Strategic Touring Programme.
