Headlong's production of 1984 will transfer from London's Almeida theatre for a three-month run in the West End. And in keeping with the current trend of producers keeping ticket prices affordable, 101 seats for every performance will be available for £19.84.
The play received a string of five-star reviews on its original nationwide tour, before garnering more during its current stint at the Almeida theatre. Now it will transfer to the Playhouse theatre from 28 April.
Robert Icke, who co-adapted and co-directed George Orwell's novel with Duncan Macmillan, took the opportunity of the transfer to defend the West End's mix of cutting-edge and populist work. Icke told the Guardian that intelligence and ambition shouldn't be a barrier for a show to have a commercial life. "If the work's good enough and the circumstances are right, then absolutely there's a place for that [in the West End] in the same way as a jukebox musical," Icke said.
Icke argued that the commercial sector comes in for unfair criticism, given the range of work on offer. "There's a gauche snobbery about the West End sometimes," he said. "There's always been a mix of shows; some really amazing, high-quality work and some not-so amazing work.
"You can't call it a dead-zone as far as proper art is concerned when Matilda and Billy Elliot are there, when Ian Rickson's making work with Kristin Scott Thomas. Those are exceptional productions and exciting projects in any context."
Headlong's production sold out its two-month Almeida run before opening and Icke believes that it has a particular appeal to audiences. "It's one of those books a lot of people lie about having read," he said, adding that it has "an interesting double status" of being both familiar and unknown at the same time.
He's also keenly aware of the production's currency. "The novel itself does that thing that Shakespeare plays do," said Icke, "which is that it's always in some kind of orbit with the present moment."
Both Chelsea Manning's apology for the WikiLeaks saga and Edward Snowden's NSA security surveillance leaks occurred while Macmillan and he were writing the show. "Nineteen Eighty-Four always feels scarily relevant and prophetic, but a certain set of events have made it feel particularly current."
The pair sought to translate the spirit, rather than the detail, of Orwell's novel to the stage. "We wanted to suck the marrow out of its bones. We wanted to mainline the essence of it," Icke continued. "What we try to deliver is the way that when you finish the book, you feel like you've been punched in the face."
The West End transfer means Headlong's run of form continues. Chimerica made the same jump from the Almeida to the West End last year and the musical adaptation of American Psycho is set to follow in the autumn.
Before then, though, 1984's move will place Orwell's dystopian view of an overbearing government right around the corner from Whitehall. As Icke says: "Whenever you're in that bit of London, you're in Orwell's London."
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• This article was amended on 10 March 2014. An earlier version separated the roles of Robert Icke and Duncan Macmillan in this production as director and playwright respectively, rather than stating their collaborative partnership throughout the entire process.
