Review: Animal Farm (Touring)

Thursday, 13th March 2025 at Leeds Playhouse 

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Staging George Orwell’s iconic Animal Farm is a daring move. It’s such a brilliant piece and its messages about power and exploitation are pretty perfect for staging right now (need I say more?). But almost every character is an animal – how do you stage such a thing if not with puppetry and techno wizzardry? Well, this production does an impressive job of bringing the novel to the stage without using either.

Tatty Hennessy’s adaptation does justice to Orwell’s original creations and makes canny choices to streamline the cast and action (the viciously trained pup patrol is now one impressively intimidating representative, Blue – played by Alexander Williams for instance), but worry not, no central roles were harmed in the transposing of this classic.

Amy Leach directs a stellar cast in a production that is mostly powerfully grim but not without comic alleviation at well-timed intervals. And Leach once more teams up with designer Hayley Grindle, who shines with a sharply drawn, very stark set design and clever costuming: the ever-expecting chicken reminiscent of a nurse in scrubs; the grafters in classic blue collar garb; animal labels tattooed on heads and arms.

Ultimately though, this story couldn’t land well on stage without an accomplished cast to carry it – and this cast are and do. They are impressive in their physicality (movement director: Kane Husbands; fight director: Kate Waters) and braying or snuffling vocalisations – all very measured and sparing, giving just enough reminders of their animal status without too much distraction from the performances (though at times this is inevitable, given the incongruity). 

It all begins beautifully – with Old Major given every ounce of gravitas required by Everal A Walsh, setting in motion the famous animal rebellion against crushing human exploitation (with the mean old Jones played by Kaya Ulasli). Snowball and Napoleon – Robin Morrissey and Tachia Newall – are pitch-perfect, with Snowball full of energy and ideas, and Napoleon quickly feeling his inadequacy with a performance full of escalating fury.

It’s with Squealer (played brilliantly by Tom Simper) that this adaptation begins to strike out in its own direction, making him not merely the obedient propagandist of his masters, but the sly, terrifyingly effective mastermind of each step towards disaster. It might make some cross, but there’s no denying that it lands with a triumphant thud and adds a very apt layer to the commentary of the piece. 

Benjamin offers great comic relief in the capable hands of David Nellist, and more laughs arrive with Farshid Rokey’s cheeky chappy Minty (his scampering scene is definitely a show highlight) and Em Prendergast, whose lively and sassy updates as Milo lift the mood before we return to that grim central action. Boxer is as lovable as ever thanks to Gabriel Paul – all blind loyalty and graft, his fate remains an emotional cornerstone of the story.

Completing the cast, Tianah Hodding and Bridie Service bing maternal warmth and emotive layers to the piece as the wise horse Clover and the ever-expectant mother hen Clara, with the dynamic between young and old(er) beautifully captured in Hodding’s moments with Shakeel Kimotho’s vainglorious Mollie.

The tension is high throughout and there’s little respite, but the production also does well to establish strong bonds and moral conundrums within the relationships we see, ensuring we see these creatures in all their humanity and inhumanity, side by side, as Orwell intended.

Animal Farm is at Leeds Playhouse until March 29th 2025 – more information and tickets can be found here.