Nineteen Eighty-Four (TV Programme) - Cast and Crew

Cast and Crew

The role of Winston Smith was taken by Peter Cushing, one of his first major roles. Cartier cast him after having been impressed with his performance in a BBC production of Anastasia the previous year. Cushing went on to become a film star as would his co-star Donald Pleasence, who played Syme. Pleasence was the only member of the cast present in the 1956 feature film adaptation of the story, playing an amalgamation of Syme and Parsons with the latter's name.

Other cast members included Yvonne Mitchell, who had starred in the Kneale/Cartier Wuthering Heights, as Julia, and André Morell as O'Brien. Wilfrid Brambell, later famous for his roles in Steptoe and Son and as Paul McCartney's grandfather in A Hard Day's Night, appeared in two roles, as the old man Winston speaks with in the pub and as a prisoner later on when Winston is imprisoned. Nigel Kneale who had briefly acted in the 1940s before turning to scriptwriting, had a small voice-over role as an announcer. The face of Big Brother was Roy Oxley, a member of the BBC design department whose inclusion was something of an in-joke on the part of the production team.

The composer of the incidental music for the programme was John Hotchkis, who insisted on a larger than usual orchestra to perform the piece. Kneale hated music off disc so the score was conducted live to the performance by Hotchkis from Lime Grove Studio E, next door to where the play was being staged, with Hotchkis and his orchestra following the action on a closed-circuit screen to synchronise their performance.