A NEW stage adaptation of Aldous Huxley’s dystopian novel Brave New World is one of the highlights of the autumn season at Darlington Civic Theatre.

The play had its premiere last week and comes to the Civic in November as part of a UK tour by the Touring Consortium Theatre Company, starring Sophie Ward as Margaret Mond, the Regional World Controller for Western Europe – in the novel the character was the male Mustapha Mond.

First published in 1932, it is regarded as one of the most important novels of the 20th century, anticipating developments in reproductive technology, psychological manipulation and behavioural conditioning.

The story is set 600 years in the future when life is almost entirely industrialised and humans are created and conditioned in a lab according to a strict caste system in a World State whose motto is Community, Identity, Stability.

Monogamy, the family unit and the natural process of giving birth are considered horrific and unnatural, and material comfort and physical pleasure – provided by the drug soma and recreational sex – represent society’s highest good.

The stage adaptation is by the award-winning playwright Dawn King who said: “Huxley's vision of the future is shockingly familiar. In many ways, we already live in Brave New World: a glittering dystopia built on inequality, where people keep themselves distracted with empty pleasures, chemical stimulants and consumer goods."

The play is a co-production with Royal & Derngate, Northampton, and is directed by James Dacre.

He said: “Asking whether it is better to be free and unhappy or to live in forced happiness, incapable of accepting freedom, our version of Brave New World will explore the ways that we currently live our lives, imagining how tomorrow’s world might look as a consequence of today's choices.”

The designer is Naomi Dawson and original new music is by the Essex band These New Puritans, whose music, including three albums, has been widely acclaimed for originality.

Sophie Ward's screen credits include TV series Land Girls, Heartbeat and Holby City, and films including Jane Eyre, Wuthering Heights and Young Sherlock.

Her theatre work includes One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, Go Back For Murder and Private Lives.

Olivier Award-winning Abigail McKern, fresh from Shakespeare in Love in the West End, takes the role of Linda.

The ensemble cast includes Olivia Morgan (Macbeth, West End, The Taming of the Shrew, Shakespeare’s Globe), William Postlethwaite (King Lear, Bath Theatre Royal, Collaborators, National Theatre) as John the Savage, Scott Karim (The Merchant of Venice, Shakespeare’s Globe, Great Britain, National Theatre) as Helmholtz Watson, and Gruffudd Glyn (Three Sisters, Young Vic, Hamlet, RSC) as Bernard.

Previous productions brought to the Civic by Touring Consortium were A View from the Bridge, To Sir, With Love, Brassed Off and Regenetion.

For tickets and more details, ring the box office on 01325 486555 or go online at darlingtoncivic.co.uk.