Orwell’s Down and Out: Live heads to Paris

The first ever live reading of Orwell's iconic text in both London and Paris completes its journey this week. Following its successful staging in London as part of UCL Festival of Culture in June, the production now moves to Paris with new readers and French themes on Friday 28 September. The latest event is the result of a collaboration between The Orwell Foundation, The Joseph Rowntree Foundation, Libby Brodie Productions and the British Council, with support from UCL. George Orwell's classic book on poverty in Paris and London was first published in France in 1935. The immersive performance will form the backbone of a narrative that explores and reveals what homelessness is, how it manifests and what damage is does to the individual and to society at large today. Orwell strongly believed that art and literature could make direct and long-lasting change, focusing the minds and the empathies of his audience on the social or political evils of the day. This event will fuse live art and social activism in an outburst of theatre, music and literature.