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Year Of The Rat (play)
''Year of the Rat'' is a play by Roy Smiles about a (fictional) encounter between George Orwell, Cyril Connolly and Sonia Brownell on the island of Jura. Connolly and Brownell were working on ''Horizon'' at the time Orwell was on Jura, in bad health, writing '' Nineteen Eighty-Four''. In the 2008 staging at the West Yorkshire Playhouse, Hugo Speer played Orwell, Claudia Elmhirst played Sonia Brownell, and Nicholas Blane, Cyril Connolly. Both men pursue Brownell, who is sorrowing over a failed love affair ( with the writer Maurice Merleau-Ponty). Connolly shared memories with Orwell of prep school, Eton and the Spanish Civil War. Orwell was working out his anger at the Communist purges under Joseph Stalin, and the iniquities of his time. 'Rat' ( a sort of agony aunt), 'Pig' (Stalinism Stalinism is the means of governing and Marxist-Leninist policies implemented in the Soviet Union from 1927 to 1953 by Joseph Stalin. It included the creation of a one-party totalit ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Roy Smiles
Roy Smiles (born 1966) is a singer-songwriter & playwright from Ealing, West London. He is also an occasional actor. Smiles has written twenty seven theatre plays, the best known of which is Kurt and Sid, a 2009 London West End production about the fictional meeting of Sid Vicious and Kurt Cobain, starring Danny Dyer & Sean Evans. He has released eight albums of songs: ''Drunks & Dreamers, Time's Moving On, Seize The Day, Autumn Song, Bremen, The Trains & The Rain, Northern Angels ''&'' Lost Souls.'' Career His first play staged in 1992 at the Battersea Arts Centre, ''Schmucks'' was about a fictitious meeting between Groucho Marx and Lenny Bruce. Smiles's stage plays focus largely on biographical subjects such as Albert Camus (''The Weight Of Days''), Evelyn Waugh (''Waugh In Winter''), Marilyn Monroe/Arthur Miller (''Reno''), George Orwell (''Year of the Rat''), Tony Hancock (''The Lad Himself'') & Robert F. Kennedy (''The Last Pilgrim''). A number of his plays have debute ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
George Orwell
Eric Arthur Blair (25 June 1903 – 21 January 1950), better known by his pen name George Orwell, was an English novelist, essayist, journalist, and critic. His work is characterised by lucid prose, social criticism, opposition to totalitarianism, and support of democratic socialism. Orwell produced literary criticism, poetry, fiction and polemical journalism. He is known for the allegorical novella ''Animal Farm'' (1945) and the dystopian novel ''Nineteen Eighty-Four'' (1949). His non-fiction works, including ''The Road to Wigan Pier'' (1937), documenting his experience of working-class life in the industrial north of England, and ''Homage to Catalonia'' (1938), an account of his experiences soldiering for the Republican faction of the Spanish Civil War (1936–1939), are as critically respected as his essays on politics, literature, language and culture. Blair was born in India, and raised and educated in England. After school he became an Imperial policeman in Burma, ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Cyril Connolly
Cyril Vernon Connolly CBE (10 September 1903 – 26 November 1974) was an English literary critic and writer. He was the editor of the influential literary magazine ''Horizon'' (1940–49) and wrote '' Enemies of Promise'' (1938), which combined literary criticism with an autobiographical exploration of why he failed to become the successful author of fiction that he had aspired to be in his youth. Early life Cyril Connolly was born in Coventry, Warwickshire, the only child of Major Matthew William Kemble Connolly (1872–1947), an officer in the King's Own Yorkshire Light Infantry, by his Anglo-Irish wife, Muriel Maud Vernon, daughter of Colonel Edward Vernon (1838–1913) J.P., D.L., of Clontarf Castle, Co. Dublin. His parents had met while his father was serving in Ireland, and his father's next posting was to South Africa.Jeremy Lewis, ''Cyril Connolly: A Life'', Jonathan Cape, 1997. Connolly's father was also a malacologist (the scientific study of the Mollusca, i.e. sna ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Sonia Brownell
Sonia Mary Brownell (25 August 1918 – 11 December 1980), better known as Sonia Orwell, was the second wife of writer George Orwell. Sonia is believed to be the model for Julia, the heroine of ''Nineteen Eighty-Four''. Sonia collaborated with the Information Research Department (IRD), a propaganda department of the British Foreign Office, which helped to increase the international fame of ''Animal Farm'' and ''Nineteen Eighty-Four''. With her support, the IRD was able to translate ''Animal Farm'' into over 16 languages, and for British embassies to disseminate the book in over 14 countries for propaganda purposes. Soon after her husband's death, Sonia sold the film rights to ''Animal Farm'' to the American Central Intelligence Agency (CIA). This deal resulted in the creation of the propaganda film ''Animal Farm'' (1954), which became the first feature length animated film made in Britain. Early life Brownell was born in Calcutta, British India, the daughter of a British coloni ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Jura, Scotland
Jura ( ; gd, Diùra; sco, Jura) is an island in the Inner Hebrides of Scotland, adjacent to and northeast of Islay. With an area of , and 196 inhabitants recorded in the 2011 census, Jura is more sparsely populated than Islay, and is one of the least densely populated islands of Scotland: in a list of the islands of Scotland ranked by size, Jura comes eighth, whereas by population it comes 31st. The island is mountainous, bare and largely infertile, covered by extensive areas of blanket bog. The main settlement is the east coast village of Craighouse. The Jura distillery, producing Isle of Jura single malt whisky, is in the village, as is the island's rum distillery which opened in 2021. Craighouse also houses the island's shop, church, primary school, the Jura hotel and bar, a gallery, craft shop, tearoom and the community run petrol pumps. North of Craighouse are a number of other small settlements on or near the east coast: Keils, Knockrome, Ardfernal, Lagg, Tarbert, ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Horizon (magazine)
''Horizon: A Review of Literature and Art'' was a literary magazine published in London, UK, between December 1939 and January 1950. Published every four weeks, it was edited by Cyril Connolly, who made it into a platform for a wide range of distinguished and emerging writers. It had a print run of 120 issues or 20 volumes. Connolly founded ''Horizon'' after T. S. Eliot ended ''The Criterion'' in January 1939, with Peter Watson as its financial backer and ''de facto'' art editor. Connolly was editor throughout its publication and Stephen Spender was an uncredited associate editor until early 1941. Connolly described the magazine's goal during World War II as The magazine had a small circulation of around 9,500, but an impressive list of contributors, and it made a significant impact on the arts during and just after the war. Connolly issued an all-Irish number in 1941, an all-Swiss number in 1946 and a U. S. number in October 1947. There was also a French issue and one compr ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Nineteen Eighty-Four
''Nineteen Eighty-Four'' (also stylised as ''1984'') is a dystopian social science fiction novel and cautionary tale written by the English writer George Orwell. It was published on 8 June 1949 by Secker & Warburg as Orwell's ninth and final book completed in his lifetime. Thematically, it centres on the consequences of totalitarianism, mass surveillance and repressive regimentation of people and behaviours within society. Orwell, a democratic socialist, modelled the authoritarian state in the novel on Stalinist Russia and Nazi Germany. More broadly, the novel examines the role of truth and facts within societies and the ways in which they can be manipulated. The story takes place in an imagined future in the year 1984, when much of the world is in perpetual war. Great Britain, now known as Airstrip One, has become a province of the totalitarian superstate Oceania, which is led by Big Brother, a dictatorial leader supported by an intense cult of personality manufactured by ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
West Yorkshire Playhouse
Leeds Playhouse is a theatre in the city centre of Leeds, West Yorkshire. Having originally opened in 1970 in a different location in Leeds, it reopened as West Yorkshire Playhouse, on Quarry Hill, in March 1990. After a refurbishment in 2018-2019, it reverted to its original name; Leeds Playhouse. The theatre has three stages of varying sizes to host and create a wide range of high-quality productions, workshops and events. The theatre was recently named the UK’s Most Welcoming Theatre at the UK Theatre Awards 2022. History The origins of Leeds Playhouse lie with a group of 13 individuals who, in 1964, informed the Arts Council there were “beginning a campaign for promoting a professional civic theatre in Leeds”. Despite some opposition from the local council, on the ground that Leeds already had a theatre (the Grand Theatre), a public appeal to raise funds was launched at a mass meeting in Leeds Town Hall on 5 May 1968. The audience was addressed by Leeds born Holly ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Hugo Speer
Hugo Alexander Speer (born 17 March 1968) is an English actor and director. Early life and education Hugo Speer was born in Harrogate in the then West Riding of Yorkshire and educated at Harrogate Grammar School. He studied acting at the Arts Educational Schools, London, Arts Educational Schools, London. Career Acting Speer began his acting career appearing in the TV series ''McCallum (TV series), McCallum'', ''The Bill'', and ''Heartbeat (UK TV series), Heartbeat''. He played a minor role in the film ''Bhaji on the Beach'' before his first notable appearance as Guy in the film ''The Full Monty''. Following this film's worldwide success he went on to appear in ''Swing'' (1999), ''Deathwatch (2002 film), Deathwatch'' and ''The Interpreter'' (playing Nicole Kidman's brother). However, most of his work has been on TV, including sitcom ''Men Behaving Badly'', dramas ''Clocking Off'', ''The Last Detective'', ''Boudica (film), Boudica'' (2003), and ''The Rotters' Club (book), The Rot ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Nicholas Blane
Nicholas Blane is an English actor. Career He is best known for his roles in stage productions such as '' Year of the Rat'', '' See How They Run'' and ''Democracy''. He has appeared in numerous British television and film projects, including ''Coronation Street'' (1993–2010), '' Heartbeat'' (1993–1998), ''Trial & Retribution'' (1997–2002), '' Dalziel and Pascoe'' (1997), ''Life Force'', ''Sharpe's Challenge'' (2006) and '' The Great Fire'' (2014). He played the role of Wopsle in the BBC adaptation of ''Great Expectations'' (1999) and he appeared in minor roles in '' The Illusionist'' (2006) and ''Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix'' (2007). In 2012 he starred as the Spice King in the second season of the HBO TV series ''Game of Thrones ''Game of Thrones'' is an American fantasy drama television series created by David Benioff and D. B. Weiss for HBO. It is an adaptation of '' A Song of Ice and Fire'', a series of fantasy novels by George R.&nbs ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Maurice Merleau-Ponty
Maurice Jean Jacques Merleau-Ponty. (; 14 March 1908 – 3 May 1961) was a French phenomenological philosopher, strongly influenced by Edmund Husserl and Martin Heidegger. The constitution of meaning in human experience was his main interest and he wrote on perception, art, politics, religion, biology, psychology, psychoanalysis, language, nature, and history. He was the lead editor of ''Les Temps modernes'', the leftist magazine he established with Jean-Paul Sartre and Simone de Beauvoir in 1945. At the core of Merleau-Ponty's philosophy is a sustained argument for the foundational role that perception plays in the human experience of the world. Merleau-Ponty understands perception to be an ongoing dialogue between one's lived body and the world which it perceives, in which perceivers passively and actively strive to express the perceived world in concert with others. He was the only major phenomenologist of the first half of the twentieth century to engage extensively with th ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Spanish Civil War
The Spanish Civil War ( es, Guerra Civil Española)) or The Revolution ( es, La Revolución, link=no) among Nationalists, the Fourth Carlist War ( es, Cuarta Guerra Carlista, link=no) among Carlists, and The Rebellion ( es, La Rebelión, link=no) or The Uprising ( es, La Sublevación, link=no) among Republicans. was a civil war in Spain fought from 1936 to 1939 between the Republicans and the Nationalists. Republicans were loyal to the left-leaning Popular Front government of the Second Spanish Republic, and consisted of various socialist, communist, separatist, anarchist, and republican parties, some of which had opposed the government in the pre-war period. The opposing Nationalists were an alliance of Falangists, monarchists, conservatives, and traditionalists led by a military junta among whom General Francisco Franco quickly achieved a preponderant role. Due to the international political climate at the time, the war had many facets and was variously viewed as cla ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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