Dennis Glover's "The Last Man in Europe"

Dennis Glover is an Australian writer and novelist. The son of factory workers, Glover grew up in the working class Melbourne suburb of Doveton before studying at Monash University and King’s College Cambridge where he was awarded a PhD in history. He has worked for two decades as an academic, newspaper columnist, policy adviser and speechwriter to Australia’s most senior political, business and community leaders. An often outspoken political commentator, his books include An Economy is not a Society, The Art of Great Speeches and Orwell’s Australia.

Here Glover dreamcasts an adaptation of his debut novel, The Last Man in Europe, which tells the dramatic story of how George Orwell wrote Nineteen Eighty-Four:

While writing The Last Man in Europe, I knew exactly who I wanted to play George Orwell as he struggled to give the world Nineteen Eighty-Four: Benedict Cumberbatch. In The Imitation Game, which is about Alan Turing, inventor of the modern computer, Cumberbatch showed his ability to play socially awkward and intellectually complex characters from the period. Turing and Orwell were near contemporaries, and Cumberbatch and Orwell even look alike: tall, gaunt, dark featured.

For the role of Eileen O’Shaughnessy – Orwell’s brave, witty and tragic wife – who else but Claire Foy, Britain’s greatest living period actress? To me, Claire Foy is the 1940s – the most stylish as well as dramatic decade of them all.

Visit Dennis Glover's website.

--Marshal Zeringue