Nineteen Eighty-Four

Rupert and Charlie look at George Orwell’s masterpiece Nineteen Eighty-Four. Austere, prescient, terrifying and ultimately profoundly moving, the novel has exercised an extraordinary hold on the western consciousness with its portrayal of a society where the state controls everything, even your mind. Many words and phrases from the book have passed into everyday language, including Big Brother, Room 101, the Thought Police, Doublethink and the Proles, and the adjective Orwellian is regularly used today to describe the encroachment and surveillance of the State. But is there any hope? Can the Party be defeated? What sort of man was George Orwell? And are there any good jokes in the book? Rupert and Charlie answer all of these questions and much more.