The director of a new Olivier Award-nominated stage production of George Orwell’s Animal Farm has described the “vibrant, visceral, youthful” experience awaiting Nottingham audiences. Speaking at a special ‘Meet the Director’ event at Bromley House Library on Wednesday afternoon, Amy Leach said that the play offers “the kind of experience you can only have in the theatre” and feels “very much like it’s set now”.
“It’s what’s called ‘total theatre’,” said Animal Farm Director Amy Leach. “It’s the kind of theatre I really like to make. It’s all of the elements, the design, the lighting, everything is really visceral. The collaborative nature of this project was huge.
“It’s an 80-year-old story, but what we’re always trying to do when we choose those classics is say ‘Why do it now?’ You want it to have something to say something to the world we’re living in now.”
Leach was addressing an audience at the Bromley House Library before the opening night of the play based on Orwell’s hugely influential 1945 novel depicting the overthrow of a brutal farmer by his own animals.
The classic tale, widely accepted as an allegory of the events of the Russian Revolution, depicts the plotting, execution and ultimate betrayal of an animals’ rights revolution by its own leaders, a cadre of powerful pigs.
What I love about her adaptation is how it really feels like it’s in dialogue with now. It’s not interested in the Russian Revolution. She’s much more interested in how it connects with everything that’s happening in the world now
The new stage version, which has been adapted by playwright Tatty Hennessy in 2021, is currently on a limited tour of the UK following its premiere at the Stratford East theatre in February and a run at the Leeds Playhouse last month.
Leach talked the Bromley House audience through the creatively fluid approach the writer, cast and crew had taken towards the new working of the Orwell novel, which she said has been adapted to be “in dialogue with now”.
“Tatty came to us. She developed [Animal Farm] with the young people of the National Youth Theatre ensemble.
“You’re talking people around the ages of 18-23 and of course in 2021 you’re thinking about things like the Black Lives Matter protests, #MeToo, the Pandemic, all of those things were alive in the brains and bodies of those young people and she developed it with them.
“What I love about her adaptation is how it really feels like it’s in dialogue with now. It’s not interested in the Russian Revolution. She’s much more interested in how it connects with everything that’s happening in the world now.
“It’s got a very vibrant, visceral, youthful energy to it.”
Working with set and costume designer Hayley Grindle, Leach sought inspiration for the stage design in the bygone human environments of British industry and hard labour, as well as “prison settings” and places of animal cruelty.
“What really interested us was the fact that the animals are grafters. They work physically incredibly hard. But they get manipulated by the pigs.
“And if we look at what’s happening with things like Andrew Tate, Adolescence, all those things, the way that young men in particular can be manipulated because they want to belong.
“They’re desperate to learn and they want to belong. That was a lot of the reference we were looking at.”
The production has been designed in conjunction with a number of specialist deaf creative, British Sign Language (BSL) and audio description consultants to include numerous features ensuring integrated access for disabled and neurodivergent audiences.
These include the use of a BSL signer on stage, interpretive performance elements, captions for deaf audience members, and an audio descriptive service spoken by one of the cast members from backstage - after their character is killed.
Animal Farm is running at Nottingham Playhouse from Wednesday 2nd – Saturday 12th April 2025. Hennessy’s adaptation has been nominated for a 2025 Olivier Award, in the category of Best New Production in Affiliate Theatre. The awards will be held and the results announced this Sunday, April 6th, at the Royal Albert Hall.
nottinghamplayhouse.co.uk
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