Orwell and the Beeb

[kev67]

It seems to have been a good couple of weeks for George Orwell on Radio 4. He was the subject of Great Lives (http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b01mqpgh), and now I've just listened about him on The History of the Future (http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b01mqq9n).

[kev67]

Is anyone listening to the current Orwell season on BBC Radio 4? It seems to be coinciding with a big Orwell push by Waterstones bookshop. I don't know why it is happening now. It is not his hundredth birthday this year, or even fifty years since any of his great books.

[Emil Miller]

Is anyone listening to the current Orwell season on BBC Radio 4? It seems to be coinciding with a big Orwell push by Waterstones bookshop. I don't know why it is happening now. It is not his hundredth birthday this year, or even fifty years since any of his great books.

The BBC's Radio 4 is such a left-leaning organisation that it's not surprising to see them indulging in an Orwell fest. I did catch part of the beginning of the series, where Orwell came across as a bit of a boy scout and told a girlfriend that he was going to Burma to become a policeman rather than go to university. I also caught some of the Spanish civil war episode and was surprised that his wife actually followed him to Spain where he fought for the anarchists in the POUM. I don't remember him mentioning his wife's appearance in Homage to Catalonia, but the BBC must have an ambivalent attitude towards Orwell who worked for them as a radio propagandist during WWII and subsequently parodied them as the 'Ministry for Truth' in his novel 1984.

[kev67]

I just listened to another BBC radio programme on George Orwell, titled Loving (http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b01qhqgf). Several things surprised me and some didn't. Orwell was not entirely faithful and a bit of a groper. Not really surprising, at least three of his novels have dogging scenes in them. Orwell was concerned he might be assassinated, which well he might. Orwell suspected Churchill would sell weapons to General Franco - I wonder if he did? Most surprising of all to me, he suspected Kim Philby of being a Soviet spy. He also said there were a lot of Soviet spies working for the BBC at the time of the war. I assume the writer of the play had evidence of him thinking this.