Debut Theatre company's adaptation of George Orwell's vision of an appalling totalitarian future - full of flickering TVs, Big Brother's all-seeing eye and double-speak - may not be particularly innovative, but it has a distinctive style. And it tells Orwell's story about thought-criminal Winston Smith's doomed attempt to stay human in an inhuman world with such clarity that you cannot avoid being caught up in his struggle. The production uses flickering lighting very cleverly, so you soon feel part of the terrible, dead world that Smith inhabits.
The success of the piece owes as much to Orwell's marvellous storytelling and striking use of language as it does to anything that Debut do, but the simple staging is effective, and the production is well paced as it builds to its climax of betrayal and double betrayal. Maybe not quite double-plus-good, but definitely not half bad.
· Until August 30. Box office: 0870 701 5105.
