Ray Bradbury's Fahrenheit 451

Fahrenheit 451

ExADUS Theatre Company

Venue 29 TheVault, Merchant Street, Edinburgh

August 14th-22nd  £9.00

In Ray Bradbury's stark future kerosene is perfume. Housing is now fireproof so firemen have a new job protecting society from books. They don't put fires out. They burn books and sometimes the people who insist on reading them. Only one truth is worth knowing; fire and smoke.

Bradbury's nightmare vision of the future reads too much like the outcome of present trends for comfort. Here, people who read books are regarded as far too uppity. Society has fragmented into 300 different minorities each jealous of their rights. Feminists don't like Jane Austen's books. Burn them! Blacks don't like Little Black Sambo. Whites don't like Uncle Tom's Cabin. Burn them! Burn books WE don't like. “Burn the smart ones. Shun the damn bright know-it-alls. They know too much.”

Society promotes ignorance as the path to social harmony, equality and uniformity. In the words of Fire Chief Beatty we are not only born equal, we will be, “damn well crushed down and made equal.”

In the everyday mad rush of modern life people had no time to read; so books were shortened, condensed, simplified. TV on the other hand was instant and gave no time for reflection. It tells you what to think before you have time to let it sink in. Viewers immersed themselves in soaps personalised for themselves. All debate and discussion was replaced by meaningless banter about sports scores.

The ExADUS players gave a polished performance. James Munter stands out as Montag, the disillusioned fireman who kept a book he ought to have burned and began to read it stands out. Keir Watson brought a nice touch of menace and cynicism to the role of Chief Beatty. Fahrenheit 451 is not a laugh a minute. It's a serious, disturbing play that ought to sound the alarm bell to all thoughtful people about trends in modern Western society.

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