AFTER a nearly two-month search in 2011, Taunton's Brewhouse Theatre picked a rat to star in their adaptation of George Orwell's 1984.
Performed by the Brewhouse Young Company from August 24 to 27, 2011, the play followed Winston Smith, a seemingly lone free thinker in a world of intrusive government surveillance and public mind control.
To tie in with Winton's nightmarish experiences in the dreaded Room 101, the show's creators spent weeks searching for a rat they could film as part of terrifying video sequence that will be played during one of the production's important scenes.
Cujo the rat, pictured with his owner Kelly Arndell, received his theatrical big-break after being hand-picked by Brewhouse staff.
Rats are an ongoing motif through 1984, and a fear of the creatures torments Winston throughout the novel.
The ambitious and "eerily relevant" adaptation of George Orwell's 1984 used film and digital imagery to help tell its story, as a "visually packed, multimedia spectacular".
Taunton's Brewhouse performed the adaption by Nick Lane. It was a fast-paced, edgy script, that manifested Orwell's timeless classic in modern troubled times.
The theatre also hired "talented 16 -25 year olds" to join The Brewhouse Young Company for their summer production. This offered "a great opportunity" for young people to work with real theatre professionals over an intensive three-week period of rehearsals and performances.
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