Nineteen Eighty-Four is a British television adaptation of the novel of the same name by George Orwell, originally broadcast on BBC Television in December 1954. The production proved to be hugely controversial, with questions asked in Parliament and many viewer complaints over its supposed subversive nature and horrific content. In a 2000 poll of industry experts conducted by the British Film Institute to determine the 100 Greatest British Television Programmes of the 20th century, Nineteen Eighty-Four was ranked in seventy-third position. Orwell's novel was adapted for television by Nigel... Kneale, one of the most prolific television scriptwriters of the time. The previous year he had created the character of Professor Bernard Quatermass for the popular science-fiction serial The Quatermass Experiment. The adaptation was produced and directed by the equally respected Rudolph Cartier, perhaps the BBC's best producer-director of the 1950s who was always adventurous artistically and technically.
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