The Handmaid’s Tale review: A brilliant communal achievement I would never choose to see again

English National Opera’s Annilese Miskimmon redirects ENO’s original version of Poul Ruders’s opera, itemising the stomach-turning ways in which the real world has has caught up with Margaret Atwood’s baleful fantasy

‘The Handmaid’s Tale’ at the Coliseum, London (Catherine Ashmore)

George Orwell’s 1984 did what no other novel had done before: it predicted the shape of the political world to come. The embodiment of its predictions may have been a bit late in arriving, but Big Brother accurately adumbrated the surveillance states we now see in China and increasing parts of the west. Russia now embodies Orwell’s state where the populace can be made to unanimously reverse their political loyalties at the flick of a switch.

The Handmaid’s Tale is now joining 1984 as a disturbingly convincing prophesy. Margaret Atwood’s classic novel was published 37 years ago, but it’s got into the West’s cultural bloodstream thanks to a variety of factors including films, stagings round the globe, a long-running TV adaptation and the much-revived operatic version by the Danish composer Poul Ruders. Meanwhile, even the victims’ veiled uniform has caught on, with people now holding "handmaid parties".

English National Opera’s artistic director Annilese Miskimmon, who has now redirected ENO’s original version of Ruders’s work, itemises the stomach-turning ways in which the real world has caught up with Atwood’s baleful fantasy.