Year of the Rat

About the show

On Jura, where George Orwell is writing Nineteen Eighty-Four, Orwell and Cyril Connolly both pursue Sonia Brownell as she grieves a failed relationship. Their conversations draw on school and Spanish Civil War memories while Orwell works through his anger at Stalinist purges; symbolic figures punctuate the action, and after Orwell's death Sonia packs his books wanting to know more.