Down and Out in Paris and London 2011

It’s not alway the case that BBC radio programmes hang around on the website, so I was glad to find that you can still catch the radio piece by Emma Jane Kirby in which she retraces George Orwell’s steps through the world of the ‘down and out’ in Paris and London.

Orwell’s first full-length work, Down and Out in Paris and London (published 1933) is a memoir on the theme of poverty. Emma Jane Kirby finds similar hardships and poverty-related issues in the two cities now and her report is both revealing and touching. One Parisian she interviews, an immigrant originally from Mali, is a plongeur (dishwasher), as Orwell was when he fell on hard times.

Don’t wait too long to check it out! Right now you can find Revisiting Down and Out in Paris and London on the Broadcasting House podcast page at http://www.bbc.co.uk/podcasts/series/bh#playepisode2, where you can play it or download it.

(or you can read a written account at http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-14372195)