WRITTEN by Aldous Huxley in 1931, the original novel has been skilfully adapted for the stage by Dawn King and is an absorbing and unsettling experience.

The play is set in the future in a World State, where there is peace, security, good health and happiness; unhappiness is seen as an undesirable personality defect. All the inhabitants are produced by genetic engineering to be perfectly suited to their role in life, in castes from Alpha to Epsilon. For example, an Epsilon test tube foetus is bred to have low intelligence, be compliant and have no aspirations, resulting in a contented life doing menial tasks for the elite Alpha and Beta castes. Laboratory production on a mass scale results in a society that has no illness, no anxiety and no want. The reverse side of the coin is that there are no family ties, no emotion, no music and no literature; the university has no great works in its library, but conditions young people in the mechanics of sex and how to gain pleasure from whatever the State considers suitable.

In a deprived wasteland outside London a genetic accident has happened; a woman has given birth naturally to a child, who has grown up with Alpha-plus characteristics. This young man’s experiences when he is taken to the city to fulfil his designated role, forms the basis of the story.

It’s a frightening glimpse of a future which becomes more credible every day; at the end, a smiling Alpha addresses the audience: “Any questions?” The response is a ripple of laughter, but the unease is all too apparent.

Runs until Saturday November 14 2015.

Box Office: 01325 486555 or darlingtoncivic.co.uk

Review: Sue Heath