Orwell: a Celebration Trafalgar Studios London SW1

Seized with optimism one fine March morning, George Bowling, the middle-aged narrator of Coming Up for Air, quits suburbia for the Oxfordshire village of his childhood. He knows he shouldn’t really head for the hills, but the impulse is too strong. A similar feeling overtook me 15 months ago when it struck me that Coming Up for Air would make a compelling monologue for the theatre, and that the actor Hal Cruttenden not only matched Bowling’s portly physique, but could flesh out the humour and pathos of his exasperated observations on modern life. And the book – suffused with the dread of conflict, economic uncertainty and the loss of rural England to building schemes – felt timely again. Why not make it happen at the Edinburgh Festival?

In the event, it all came together better than could have been expected. What at first felt like a punishing restriction – the Assembly Rooms’ stipulation that the show last no more than an hour – proved a strength. My early drafts were laughably long. I was forced to distil the essence of the book, its core emotional journey. Paring down the text gave actor and audience room to breathe, to picture the scene between them.

In transferring the piece to the Trafalgar Studios, I was again tempted to restore more of the original, but I’ve mostly resisted. The knock-on benefit is that there is time to air two celebrated essays – “Shooting an Elephant” and “A Hanging” – plus a morsel of Nineteen Eighty-Four, performed by Alan Cox and Ben Porter. And the Orwell Prize chips in, too, with weekly debates about the man and his work. What started as a one-off experiment has become, by accident, a major festival to celebrate Orwell’s legacy.

“Orwell: a Celebration” runs at the Trafalgar Studios, London SW1, 8 June to 4 July. Tickets: 0870 060 6632 or www.orwellcelebration.org

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