Animal Farm as Witnessed by Moses the Raven – Baron’s Court Theatre, London

Writer: George Orwell

Adaptor: Dov Citron

Director: Victoria Keegan

Dov Citron’s snappy one-hour adaptation of George Orwell’s Animal Farm is a little gem. Citron plays all the parts, starting with Mr Jones, the farmer. While the audience are still finding their seats, he’s staggering round blind drunk, muttering imprecations about his rivals, Pilkington and Frederick. It’s a neat way of getting across a vital element of the plot, although Citron avoids exploring the allegorical implications of these and the other characters. He plays it straight just as Orwell does – and he’s surely wise to do so. In his hands it’s a compelling piece of dramatic storytelling.

His play’s full title – ‘as Witnessed by Moses the Raven’ – is clever too. As soon as Mr Jones disappears, Citron reappears, this time as Moses, who is reimagined as an austere protestant preacher, telling the story as an exemplum.

Seconds later, he’s Old Major, the pig who articulates his (or rather Marx’s) philosophical vision of communism. Citron is great as the noble pig, grunting and snorting before he speaks, then giving it the full Churchill, really leaning into ‘Never let it be said …’.  Audience members who have studied the original might enjoy noting the changes Citron makes, but will be impressed at how well they work.

With just a few wisps of straw, and some battered wooden boards, Citron has created the barn and all the animals herded there. He excels at physical theatre, producing an entertaining variety of beasts and birds. He does a very good cow, and he’s excellent as poor benighted Boxer, the carthorse. But where were the sheep? Perhaps Citron hasn’t perfected an imitation yet. But it’s a shame not to get a round of ‘Four Legs good, Two Legs bad!’

Snowball and Napoleon – the dominant pigs who stand for Lenin and Stalin – are brilliantly differentiated, Snowball a political charmer, Napoleon a dour Northerner. Squealer is a particularly slippery PR man, with his fake smiles and his ‘Listen up, people!’

Some of Citron’s inventions are right on the nose. How would the cows have got milked? It’s just what one wonders reading the book. And once Jones has been banished, he imagines all the animals trooping round the luxurious appointed farmhouse, gasping at the soft carpets underfoot. It’s genuinely shocking here when the creatures discover their dead comrades hanging in the meat pantry, then tenderly taking down the bodies and burying them.

The play nips smartly through the allegory of Russian industrialisation, represented by the building of the windmill and clearly spells out the fatal flaws of the system the animals have inadvertently espoused. The famous ending is there, and Citron allows himself a didactic ending to spell out the text’s message.

After the show, he tells the audience that he and director Victoria Keegan are hoping to tour it around schools. They should. It’ll be a great hit.

 Runs until 3 October 2026