1984 comes to America: New George Orwell stage adaptation to open on Broadway

Renewed interest in seminal novel comes as Donald Trump lashes out at 'fake news' and adviser Kellyanne Conway coins distinctly Orwellian phrase 'alternative facts'

The late Sir John Hurt playing Winston Smith in Michael Radford's 1984 film adaptation of Orwell's novel

A new British stage adaptation of George Orwell's chilling novel 1984 is heading to an America where issues of “newspeak” and surveillance are increasingly relevant.

Producers Sonia Friedman and Scott Rudin said that the play will open in June at the Hudson Theatre.

It was created by Robert Icke and Duncan MacMillan and nominated by an Olivier Award. No Broadway casting was revealed.

First published in 1949, Orwell's classic tale of a society run by Big Brother in which facts are distorted and suppressed in a cloud of “newspeak” has topped the Amazon.com best-seller lists.

The renewed interest comes on the heels of the Trump administration's unfounded allegation that millions of illegal votes were cast against him last autumn and key adviser Kellyanne Conway coining the phrase “alternative facts”.

AP