EVERY so often, a production comes along that causes a stir, word of mouth builds by the day, but then the show has gone all too soon, with only a programme for memories.

Every so often too, however, the production is granted a resurrection, and York Theatre Royal and resident company Pilot Theatre are mulling over adopting such a working practice more regularly, thanks to the sucsess of The Machine Stops.

E M Forster's science-fiction short story was premiered last May in Neil Duffield's incisive, moving adaptation, enjoying a Studio run and a short tour and now it returns to the Studio before a much longer tour this season.

Written between those two pillars of early 20th century English literature, A Room With A View in 1908 and Howards End in 1910, Forster's vision of the future was a response to the outpourings of H G Wells, although it now stands comparison with Orwell's prescient 1984.

Theatre Royal associate director Juliet Forster – no relation – picked her allies so well last year: not only the experienced Duffield, but also the pioneering electronic musicians John Foxx and Benge in their first theatre commission, newly available on CD in the foyer and even more striking, mysterious and noble in the 2017 show than it was last time.

York Press:

Ricky Butt's Vashti and Rohan Nedd's Kuno in The Machine Stops. Picture: Ben Bentley

Likewise, designer Rhys Jarman's metallic climbing frame stage could not better represent restriction, claustrophobia and a desire for escape, while offering the opportunity for constant physical movement: movement beyond Vashti (Ricky Butt, one of three cast changes from 2016).

Centre stage, Butt's Vashti has turned soft-boned and slothful, struggling to walk and wrapped in grey swaddling wraps, as she embraces her new, post-apocalyptic, virtual life run by The Machine, in the wake of humans being forced underground to self-contained cells where everything is brought to you: food, ambient music; dry, academic lectures; overlapping messages.

Choose life at the the touch of a button, but on the other hand this is life with no windows; no natural day or night; no physical communication; life where your baby is taken away from you at birth in this dystopian regime. This is the age of isolation, the cyber age, increasingly lived out by teenagers today.

Duffield and Juliet Forster decided to represent The Machine in human form, cogent cogs that slither and slide and swoop acrobatically, responding to Vashti's every request, in the gymnastic union of returnee Maria Gray and new partner Adam Slynn.

Such stories need a rebel figure, like Winston Smith in 1984, and here it is Vashti's son Kuno (new face Rohan Nedd), living on the other side of the underground world. He craves breaking out into the old world above the artificial one, to breathe real air, see the sky, feel the sun on his face, but The Machine will do its utmost to prevent him. Nedd makes an impressive York debut, his voice drawing you in and his daring physicality capturing Kuno's desperation.

Don't miss the future: it's here now, occasionally humorous, more often frightening, yet crucially, ultimately, deeply and painfully human.

The Machine Stops, York Theatre Royal and Pilot Theatre, York Theatre Royal Studio, until Saturday, then on tour. Box office: 01904 623568 or at yorktheatreroyal.co.uk