EDFRINGE REVIEW: 1984 (Box Tale Soup)
1984 - ★★★★★ – Fervid
Box Tale Soup30 Jul – 25 Aug
Review by Rebecca Mahar
Box Tale Soup rings in the Fringe with a raw, innovative adaptation of 1984 that strips the story back to its essentials.
Self-described as a “theatre company with more puppets than people,” Box Tale Soup holds true to that in 1984. But the story isn’t solely told by puppets; rather, it integrates the puppetry as part of the show’s messaging and interpretation of its source material, in which the inhabitants of a totalitarian state are puppeteered by their government.
The company of 1984. Pic: Box Tale Soup.
Based on George Orwell’s iconic 1949 dystopian novel of the same name, 1984 takes place in an imagined future in which Great Britain has become part of the superstate Oceania, governed by the Party, with Big Brother as its dictator. Residents are constantly surveilled, language is being redeveloped into Newspeak, and history and fact are constantly being rewritten. Under the slogan “he who controls the past controls the future, he who controls the present controls the past,” the state decides what is true, regardless of reality.
But when Ministry of Truth worker Winston Smith begins to doubt, committing thought-crime against the Party, he is drawn into the orbit of fellow rebel Julia. Together they begin an affair and join the Resistance, throwing caution to the winds in spite (or perhaps because of) their inevitable doom.
In Box Tale Soup’s version of the story, Winston and his fellow workers are represented by puppets, each given voice by one of the three company members: Mark Collier, Antonia Christophers, and Noel Byrne. Each takes primary control of multiple puppets, and assists on others, except Collier, who remains Winston throughout. However, he is not always behind the puppet.
Antonia Christophers as Julia and Mark Collier as Winston. Pic: Box Tale Soup.
As Winston questions the Party, and his world expands, Collier hands off his puppet, emerging to speak without the intermediary. When he meets Julia, she is played only by Christophers, no puppet to be seen: a rebel free of Party control, living in just enough obedience to it to keep her safe, but daring enough to tell Winston she loves him. Once they are together, Winston’s puppet disappears altogether, and they move into a flat in the prole (short for proletariat) district, seemingly free of Party surveillance.
Collier and Christophers are perfectly partnered, Collier embodying the ebbs and flows of Winston’s anxiety and confidence, and Collier’s radiating Julia’s commitment to her own freedom and desire for Winston.
Only one character never appears as a puppet: O’Brien, the nameless Inner Party member who befriends and betrays Winston. Played with intensity and vocal profundity by Byrne, O’Brien never doubts, never questions, believes utterly in the party’s mission and its pursuit of power. Although a thrall of the party, in O’Brien’s belief system, he is the only one who is free— and it is his narration that begins, ends, and underpins the play.
Nick Byrne as O'Brien and Mark Collier as Winston. Pic: Box Tale Soup.
The metaphor of the puppets, mask-like and virtually identical but for a bit of hair, is not heavy handed. Rather, they are a perfectly chosen and well-integrated device reflecting Orwell’s scathing critique of a type of society which, he wrote in a letter, “will [not] necessarily arrive…but something resembling it could arrive.” Written during and published in the immediate aftermath of the Second World War, many of the individual horrors that made up or inspired those of 1984 had already come to pass.
The trio of performers execute not only the portrayal of their characters with superb specificity and commitment, but also the many manipulations of the various versatile setpieces (designed by Christphers and Byrne) that make up the world of 1984. These perfectly choreographed and timed movements allow the play to flow nimbly from one location to the next while providing both a sense of continuity and unreality at their sameness and multipurposeness.
This versatile company of multi-talented performers, along with director Adam Lenson, have crafted a stunning new rendition of this classic story, its ominous warnings more relevant than ever.
Running time: One hour and ten minutes with no interval
Venue: Pleasance Courtyard (Above), 60 Pleasance EH8 9TJ
Dates: 30 July – 25 August, 2025
Time: 11:25am
IG: @boxtalesoup
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