In 1964, Marshal McLuhan taught us that ‘the medium is the message’. Back then, that medium was television. Today, it is the internet, social media, smartphones that live in our pocket. We allhave 24-hour access to our own medium, which we use to produce our own message, and these mediums allow us a degree of anonymity – a distance that detaches us from the receiver of our message. We know that violence sells, nastiness attracts attention, and as our desire for virality grows, we aren’t afraid to give our audience what they want in exchange for likes, retweets, views. Despite being set in the 1970’s, Network explores this idea. Adapted by Lee Hall, from the original screenplay by Paddy Chayefsky, Network chronicles the triumph of sensation over truth.

Howard Beale (Bryan Cranston) has been a newsreader for 25 years. And he’s run out of bullshit. After he threatens to kill himself live on air, and rants and rages about the state of world affairs with frightening candour, he becomes an overnight sensation, a martyr. His friend and boss Max Shumacher (Douglass Henshall) tries to guide him safely through his rise to notoriety, regularly butting heads with young and career-driven Diana Christensen (Michelle Dockery), who is happy to exploit Howard through what may well be a psychological episode.

Cranston gives an incredible performance as Howard, and is utterly captivating in his many monologues during the ‘Howard Beale Hour’. It is suggested that he may be a little mentally unstable, he is mocked by his peers and they have him perform like a circus clown, but it is impossible to ignore that there is truth to his (well, Paddy Chayefsky’s) words. He tells us ‘Television is not the truth. Television is an amusement park’, and he’s right. In an era of Kardashians and megastars, Beale’s words resonate now more than ever. ‘You’re beginning to believe that the tube is reality and your own lives are unreal. […] You dress like the tube, eat like the tube, you even think like the tube’ – for a generation like mine, in a constant state of comparison, who grew up with television and are knee-deep in apps and likes, these words are revolutionary. What’s on our phones and televisions is mostly lies, but we often forget this, and live in a constant state of striving.

There is, somewhat inexplicably, a restaurant onstage entitled Foodwork in which audiences can pay £95 per head to be served a five-course meal whilst watching the performance. This to me seems ridiculous and gimmicky, a mere money-making exercise, not to mention counter-intuitive, and anti Beale’s message – but then the play does contradict itself. Beale tells us not to believe the television, via the television. He tells us not to buy into the lies they sell us, during a show littered with advertisements. However, this doesn’t stop the ‘immersive five-star dining experience’ leaving a bad taste in my mouth.

Directed by Ivo van Hove, Network is stunning and inspiring. Supported by a strong cast including an exasperated Schumacher by Henshall and Dockery’s brilliantly detached Diana, it is crucial viewing for my generation. It presents ideas we may never have considered before, prompting us to observe ourselves and the way in which we respond to media a little more closely. It at times gets a little dark, but ultimately, Network is hopeful, for an age in which we turn off our screens and look to one-another for truth instead.

Network is playing at the Lyttelton Theatre until 24th March. The show is sold-out, but tickets are still available through Day Seats and Friday Rush. For more information and tickets, see www.nationaltheatre.org.uk/shows/network.