Year of the Rat

March 27, 2008

Year of the Rat
Venue: West Yorkshire Playhouse
Date Reviewed: 19th March 2008

Year of the Rat begins with George Orwell (Hugo Speer) alone on the Scottish isle of Jura banging out 1984 on his archaic typewriter. He is joined by the strong-willed and independent Sonia Brownell (Claudia Elmhirst), the model for Julia in his totalitarian classic novel. Perhaps partly out of pity for Orwell’s loneliness and depression she whisks him off to bed in the first scene, with the audience treated to a fleeting glimpse of her assets.

But, just as with Winston and Julia in ‘1984’, this is no straight-forward romance. They are visited by the bombastic and arrogant Cyril Connolly (Orwell’s life-long friend and publisher of London’s trendy ‘Horizon’ magazine, played extravagantly by Nicholas Blane). A seriously objectionable misogynist, he is known in city circles as the ‘Dick of Death’ and he wastes no time in exposing said member to an aloof Sonia.

Other house-guests who drop in and out throughout the hilarity are the horse Boxer, Pig and Rat. They appear to Orwell alone and respectively signify the working class, Stalinism and his hope for love and freedom. The Pig is particularly sinister, justifying mass murder as a necessity of revolutionary endeavour and taunting the writer about how ‘Animal Farm’ had been used as right-wing anti-Soviet propaganda in his homeland.

Overall Roy Smiles’ new work is unsure whether to be full-on political agitprop or a fast-paced satirical comedy. But in the end the ribald humour sweetens the bitter pill of his political intent and successfully enters a zone where philosophical discourse and razor-sharp meet like old chums. Michael Pavelka’s design richly conjures up the windswept God-forsaken remoteness of its setting and all four performances hit their characters right on the mark. Following the success of ‘Ying Tong’ on Spike Milligan this is another bio-drama that illuminates its subject with skill and subtlety – a veritable tour de force.

Rich Jevons

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