Radio 4, July 1 2017

Arthur Koestler’s reworking of the Great Soviet Purge of 1938.

This is a bit of an oddity in the Dangerous Visions series, as Koestler – so far as I’m aware – wasn’t writing his tale as a piece of science fiction. It’s certainly a book that’s an influence on George Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four, but many great works of literature have inspired SF and fantasy works but don’t fall within that category themselves. If the branding is being subtly altered to indicate that the plays within are visions of dangerous times, then all bets are off for stories about totalitarian regimes from history!

That quibble aside, this is a strong adaptation that strips Koestler’s text back to the bones, presenting the “facts” of the story in a moderately linear way without some of the Hungarian writer’s more didactic moments. The various incidents from Rubashov’s career that are used against him are dramatized – from the shipyard workers unhappy that the Party has changed its mind over providing oil to the Fascists, to his relationship with his secretary – and we understand both why he can’t see them being a problem, and exactly why the Party think they are.

In the publicity for this, much is made of the way that Simon Scardifield has used the recently rediscovered original manuscript for the book as the basis for the adaptation – what exactly is different between that and the better known English version, and what changes were simply made for the radio medium? Together with director Sasha Yevtushenko, Scardifield brings out the banality of evil and the inevitability of those one side of the interrogation process ending up on the other.

Verdict: A depressing story that still resonates today. 8/10

Paul Simpson

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