Nineteen Eighty-four
'I do not believe that the kind of society I describe necessarily will arrive, but I believe that something resembling it could arrive. The scene of the book is laid in Britain in order to emphasise that the English-speaking races are not innately better than anyone else and that totalitarianism if not fought against could triumph anywhere.'
The last in this series of Arena films about the life and work of George Orwell begins with the tragic death of his wife Eileen in March 1945. Overcome with grief at his bereavement and despair at the future of Britain under the post-war Labour government, Orwell retreated to the remote Hebridean island of Jura. It was here, crippled with tuberculosis and isolated from the rest of the world, that Orwell cared for his adopted infant son, Richard, and wrote his last novel Nineteen Eighty-four-a nightmare vision of a totalitarian future in which Big Brother controls not only the lives but also the thoughts of his citizens, and love and individual freedom is no more than a distant memory. Among those appearing are Avril Dunn Bill Dunn
Susan Watson
Sonia Orwell and Richard Blair
Research DIANA MANSFIELD
Associate producer CHARLES CHABOT Producer ALAN YENTOB Director NIGEL WILLIAMS An Arena production
A BBC Ariel book, Orwell Remembered, £3.95 from booksellers from 12 January