It is my greatest shame to admit, as an English Lit graduate and now a journalist, I have never read 1984. The opportunities were ten-a-penny, and despite having bought several dog-eared copies of Orwell’s masterpiece, I couldn’t bring myself to dive in.

His ideas, indictments and characters had been discussed so often by fellow students, on the news, in the media, they felt already familiar. I didn’t think poring over the text had anything to offer me, especially in a world relatively free from censorship, a world so far removed from his dystopian tale and the chokehold of Big Brother.

So I felt an uncomfortable jolt when the curtain rose. Far from delving straight to the heart of Orwell’s suffocating universe, the production invented an after; after the fall of the ‘party’, after the collapse of tyranny, a motley crew were on stage discussing the relevance of a daily diary by one Winston Smith (1984’s hero), which he kept by somehow eluding the invasive telescreens tracking his every move.

Flitting between the ‘modern day’ discussion and flashbacks to 1984, the play is eventually is rerouted back to Orwell’s text.

And yet disquiet hovers. After such a startling opening, the play can only be viewed through the prism of our own world, and the audience is forced to draw some distressing parallels. What is freedom of speech?

Are we our own censors? How far would we be willing to go to protect our inalienable rights?

The characters’ constant state of alert, their captivity in a world they cannot decipher is vividly mirrored by blinding strobe lights and the piercing hum that accompanies each flash.

The production is raw, visceral and at times, frankly, unbearable.

The intensity of the torture scenes which leave Winston Smith (stunningly bwrought to life by Matthew Spencer), a shell devoid of thought, will, or intention, is stifling.

If I ever thought Orwell had nothing to say in our liberal and outspoken modern world, I was mistaken. With the likes of ISIS on a systematic crusade to eradicate the past, rewrite history and sadistically crush individual thought, Orwell’s troubling warning is more relevant than ever.

On until Saturday at the Theatre Royal in Bath For tickets and more information visit  http://www.theatreroyal.org.uk/

- MARION SAUVEBOIS