What do you think?
Rate this book
Network
I'm as mad as hell, and I'm not going to take this anymore.
Howard Beale, news anchorman, isn't pulling in the viewers. In his final broadcast he unravels live on screen. But when the ratings soar, the network seize on their newfound populist prophet, and Howard becomes the biggest thing on TV.
Adapted for the stage by Lee Hall from the Paddy Chayefsky film, Network premiered at the National Theatre, London, in November 2017.
Howard Beale, news anchorman, isn't pulling in the viewers. In his final broadcast he unravels live on screen. But when the ratings soar, the network seize on their newfound populist prophet, and Howard becomes the biggest thing on TV.
Adapted for the stage by Lee Hall from the Paddy Chayefsky film, Network premiered at the National Theatre, London, in November 2017.
96 pages, Paperback
Published August 23, 2018
60 people want to read
About the author
Lee Hall
18 books8 followersLee Hall (born 20 September 1966) is an English playwright and screenwriter. He is best known for the 2000 film Billy Elliot.
Hall was born in Newcastle upon Tyne, Tyne & Wear, in 1966, the son of a house painter and decorator and a housewife. He was educated at Benfield School in Walkergate. As a youth he went to Wallsend Young People's Theatre along with Deka Walmsley and Trevor Fox who later appeared in both Billy Elliot and The Pitmen Painters. He went to Fitzwilliam College, Cambridge, where he studied English literature and was taught by the poet Paul Muldoon.[1] After leaving Cambridge, he worked as a youth theatre fundraiser in Newcastle and at the Gate Theatre in London. In 1997, his playwriting career was launched with the broadcast of his radio play, Spoonface Steinberg, on BBC Radio 4.[2]
Hall was born in Newcastle upon Tyne, Tyne & Wear, in 1966, the son of a house painter and decorator and a housewife. He was educated at Benfield School in Walkergate. As a youth he went to Wallsend Young People's Theatre along with Deka Walmsley and Trevor Fox who later appeared in both Billy Elliot and The Pitmen Painters. He went to Fitzwilliam College, Cambridge, where he studied English literature and was taught by the poet Paul Muldoon.[1] After leaving Cambridge, he worked as a youth theatre fundraiser in Newcastle and at the Gate Theatre in London. In 1997, his playwriting career was launched with the broadcast of his radio play, Spoonface Steinberg, on BBC Radio 4.[2]
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 15 of 15 reviews
June 8, 2019
As a fan of the movie, I was a little skeptical of the play-I shouldn't have been. Mr. Hall has kept the majority, if not all, of Mr. Chayefsky's original dialogue in all of it's stunning, biting brilliance. The really sad thing is, is that absolutely NOTHING has changed between the time of the original movie and the current play. NOTHING-and that make me "mad as hell"!
June 9, 2019
Dynamic and powerful the text still feels (unfortunately) just as important today as it did when the movie debuted many years ago. It is exciting and fresh and reads briskly!
June 28, 2019
If something so cinematic had to be adapted, this is the way to do it. I have a slight problem with the moralizing speech at the end (it feels cribbed from Chayefsky’s notes or interviews), but otherwise it’s perfect.
January 27, 2019
Some plays have scripts that perfectly capture the essence of the play; others have scripts that pale in comparison to what an audience would see onstage. I imagine Network is one of the latter. I suspect Network is one of those plays that is a lot better when actually seen performed as opposed to just reading the script. There's not much to this script and it doesn't work all that well on the page - which is somewhat understandable. A great deal of very good plays don't entirely work on the page alone. But, as I haven't seen this adaptation on stage, I can only evaluate it based on the script. And, honestly, it's fine; not great, not bad, just fine. It doesn't seem to have anything new to say and has a slavish devotion to the original film that might honestly be detrimental. It's been a few years since I've seen the film, but the script seems to literally just be the script of the film, just with a few tweaks for the stage. And Hall's introduction to this edition of the script would seem to confirm that. I understand not wanting to mess with something that works, but honestly, if you're not gonna do it differently or have something new to say, why bother adapting something that's easily available in another medium.
Most times, when a film is adapted for the stage, it's changed into a musical. Musicalizing an existing film is definitely a new way of telling an existing story. I'm not saying that Network should have been turned into a musical, but something new should have been done with it. As written, it's nearly exactly the same as the film I can already see. I feel that Hall really missed a trick by not updating the setting to the modern day, at the very least. He talks in the introduction of this edition of the script about how the film is even more relevant today than it was in the 1970s and I fully agree with him. Much of what was considered satirical in the original film is reality nowadays and it's for that reason that I believe this play should have updated its setting to the modern day. Imagine Beale as a Fox News style anchor and suddenly he doesn't seem so over-the-top. The play could explore more of how the 24-hour news channels have corrupted news journalism even further. Or how the internet has changed everything. Or the immense amount of fake news. Instead, it just does exactly what the original film did with no new commentary on the events of the past forty, or so, years. And that's immensely disappointing.
From watching some behind the scenes videos on the original London production of Network, it's apparent that the creative team has modernized the look of the play a bit. The newsroom looks more like a modern newsroom than one from the 1970s. The play integrates four cameras and a massive projection screen in a way rarely seen in theatre and it sounds like all these technical elements (combined with, what I expect, is a superb performance from Bryan Cranston) are what make this adaptation of Network unique and interesting. Unfortunately, the script reflects none of this. On the page, everything feels disjointed. There's no sense of the passage of time, scenes seem very disjointed and often unconnected, and everything feels a bit flat. I suppose that's to be expected with a story like this, but it doesn't really excuse it. The script could have included some stage directions that better hinted at the vision behind this production. But, alas, no such luck.
All in all, Lee Hall's script for the stage adaptation of Network is little more than a copy and paste of the film script with a few tweaks made here and there. Luckily, that film script is an excellent one. Unfortunately, it still doesn't make this script a particularly enjoyable or satisfying read. Everything feels flat and scenes feel disjointed and unconnected. It does a poor job at reflecting the visual changes made to the film for the stage version. Narratively, it really could have benefitted from an update and a modernization. Instead, it seems that Hall had a slavish devotion to the original script and it's hurt his adaptation. As a script, it's a weak play. I'd be very interested in seeing it onstage, though. All the visual elements combined with the performances from the actors might very well be enough to make this adaptation a unique experience that I can't get from just watching the film. But, without having seen the play, I can't say that the script is different enough from the film to make it worthwhile. Why read a play that's basically the same thing as the film when I can just watch that original film?
Most times, when a film is adapted for the stage, it's changed into a musical. Musicalizing an existing film is definitely a new way of telling an existing story. I'm not saying that Network should have been turned into a musical, but something new should have been done with it. As written, it's nearly exactly the same as the film I can already see. I feel that Hall really missed a trick by not updating the setting to the modern day, at the very least. He talks in the introduction of this edition of the script about how the film is even more relevant today than it was in the 1970s and I fully agree with him. Much of what was considered satirical in the original film is reality nowadays and it's for that reason that I believe this play should have updated its setting to the modern day. Imagine Beale as a Fox News style anchor and suddenly he doesn't seem so over-the-top. The play could explore more of how the 24-hour news channels have corrupted news journalism even further. Or how the internet has changed everything. Or the immense amount of fake news. Instead, it just does exactly what the original film did with no new commentary on the events of the past forty, or so, years. And that's immensely disappointing.
From watching some behind the scenes videos on the original London production of Network, it's apparent that the creative team has modernized the look of the play a bit. The newsroom looks more like a modern newsroom than one from the 1970s. The play integrates four cameras and a massive projection screen in a way rarely seen in theatre and it sounds like all these technical elements (combined with, what I expect, is a superb performance from Bryan Cranston) are what make this adaptation of Network unique and interesting. Unfortunately, the script reflects none of this. On the page, everything feels disjointed. There's no sense of the passage of time, scenes seem very disjointed and often unconnected, and everything feels a bit flat. I suppose that's to be expected with a story like this, but it doesn't really excuse it. The script could have included some stage directions that better hinted at the vision behind this production. But, alas, no such luck.
All in all, Lee Hall's script for the stage adaptation of Network is little more than a copy and paste of the film script with a few tweaks made here and there. Luckily, that film script is an excellent one. Unfortunately, it still doesn't make this script a particularly enjoyable or satisfying read. Everything feels flat and scenes feel disjointed and unconnected. It does a poor job at reflecting the visual changes made to the film for the stage version. Narratively, it really could have benefitted from an update and a modernization. Instead, it seems that Hall had a slavish devotion to the original script and it's hurt his adaptation. As a script, it's a weak play. I'd be very interested in seeing it onstage, though. All the visual elements combined with the performances from the actors might very well be enough to make this adaptation a unique experience that I can't get from just watching the film. But, without having seen the play, I can't say that the script is different enough from the film to make it worthwhile. Why read a play that's basically the same thing as the film when I can just watch that original film?
February 28, 2019
Everything Paddy Chayefsky ever wrote felt like it was written for the stage and translated to the screen- he's very much like Aaron Sorkin in that way. Lee Hall's adaptation of "Network" for the stage, currently a phenomenon on Broadway due to Bryan Cranston's galvanizing performance, differs very little from the screen version, because it doesn't have to: what was dark satire in the 1970s is now fictionalized reality to day, as television punditry has all but replaced traditional broadcast journalism. Howard Beale was a cipher and a cautionary tale in the original film, but today we know him by many more names.
Is the play good? Yes, it's good. It's probably better to see live than just to read, because director Ivo Van Hove's multimedia treatment of the show, with what you see on the Jumbotron not always what you see on the live stage, is baked heavily into the concept. But the only thing keeping this script from being a five-star knockout is the fact that it's lost some shock value over the past five decades. This is clearly intended to be a slap to the face, a shock to the system. Today it plays as preaching to the choir, because talking heads have been mad as hell for the past thirty years at least.
Is the play good? Yes, it's good. It's probably better to see live than just to read, because director Ivo Van Hove's multimedia treatment of the show, with what you see on the Jumbotron not always what you see on the live stage, is baked heavily into the concept. But the only thing keeping this script from being a five-star knockout is the fact that it's lost some shock value over the past five decades. This is clearly intended to be a slap to the face, a shock to the system. Today it plays as preaching to the choir, because talking heads have been mad as hell for the past thirty years at least.
February 1, 2020
The play preserves what I remembered about the highpoints of the film, but also brings out something I missed the first time - the idea of "Network," not as a television concept, but the network of humanity - how all of our hopes, fears, hatreds, needs, lusts, bump up against each other and explode and react together. Howard Beale's breakdown becomes a commodity to use, but it points to how personalities amplified by the media can spread their needs and "infect" viewers, and how the unreality of it imposes itself on reality. There is much about this work that still bleeds the seventies - the cynicism, the anger, the crassness. The subversiveness of the Black Panther storyline from the original film didn't need to be excised. As it is, the similarities between message of the terrorist and the message of Howard - and the message of the corporate executive - seem more evident.
September 20, 2021
“We no longer live in a world of nations and ideologies, Mr Beale. The world is a college of corporations, inexorably determined by the immutable by-laws of business. The world is a business, Mr Beale. It has been that way since man crawled out of the slime and our children, Mr Beale, will live to see that perfect world without war or famine, oppression or brutality – one vast and ecumenical holding company, for whom all men will work to serve a common profit, in which all men will hold a share of stock, all necessities provided, all anxieties tranquillised, all boredom amused.”
—
Capitalism is a death sentence for humanity.
—
Capitalism is a death sentence for humanity.
March 5, 2022
I feel bad for giving this three stars, but having seen the play on stage - more than that, I was on stage myself in the working restaurant that featured in the action - the text just doesn’t compete with the actual experience. What felt like a dynamic and moving play at the National Theatre is just a fairly decent script on the page. Kudos to Ivo van Hove and Bryan Cranston for bringing that extra edge and excitement to it.
February 19, 2023
One of my favorite movies. From my understanding this is just almost a word for word adaptation, but it actually works really well as I play. I'd love to see it one day. My main reason for getting this was just because there are a ton of great monologues in it. I also found a few typos so that's kinda fun. It's nice to feel slightly smarter than the guy who wrote this! Though the typos probably weren't his doing, but I'm going to tell myself they were. Good script.
December 20, 2017
I remember the Chayefsky film as being coherent, but that memory may be false. This isn’t coherent this is confused piffle that holds up a sign every so often saying ‘Message’, but there is no message. The National Theatre production is badly blocked technophiliac nonsense that tries to hide its banality with shiny objects. The text is just the banality.
March 14, 2025
What an insane script. I love the movie (I've read the screenplay once or twice now) and the stage show brings something almost refreshing to it. Not much has been changed, just shortened by a bit, but the show is still electric. Lee Hall did a masterful job at translating Paddy Chayefsky's tone and utter brilliance into a stage show. I would kill to have seen Bryan Cranston perform this show.
October 4, 2018
4.5 stars: great adaption that nails media in 2018. Great first act-second Act was slow
January 2, 2019
I'm messed up about how good this is.
March 28, 2023
Same as it ever was.
January 4, 2022
wonderful language and a surprisingly timely story. some of it was too white business man-ish for me to understand but the rest- wow. would have loved to see this live, the set design and technical aspects were mindblowing.
Displaying 1 - 15 of 15 reviews