Cinema celebrates heroes with smoking guns, but in George Orwell, England gave the world a hero with a smoking typewriter.

Chronically ill with TB, he fought for a better world and honed the language of his essays and novels to become the greatest writer in English of the 20th century.

Roy Smiles's splendid short play is biography transformed by good old-fashioned imaginative story-telling.

Orwell wrote his last book 1984 on the remote Scottish island of Jura, but he was not visited by the sybaritic Cyril Connolly and Sonia Brownell. Smiles, however, brings all three together in a witty and touching encounter.

Connolly, played by Nicholas Blane, says he has come to save his oldest friend from breaking his heart by proposing to Sonia. Sonia, played by Claudia Elmhirst, says she cannot marry Orwell because she does not love him. Orwell, pale and retching, played convincingly by Hugo Speer, declares that Sonia represents his one chance of human happiness.

Smiles cleverly evokes the parallel between this fictional encounter on Jura and the relationship between Winston Smith and Julia in 1984.

While this is going on, feverish Orwell is visited by emanations from Animal Farm and 1984, all brilliantly played by Paul Kemp - Boxer, the loyal shire horse; the rat from Room 101 in 1984; and one of the pigs from Animal Farm as a sneering, grunting Stalin.

The Year of the Rat is on until April 5. For tickets ring (0113) 2137700.