A remarkable collaboration is linking the North-East and Barcelona in a homage to one of our most visionary writers. Steve Pratt reports on turning one of George Orwell's most heartfelt works into an international drama.

Beneath the CCTV camera, the numbers 1984 have been scratched on the wall. Big Brother is indeed watching people as they pass through the public square in Barcelona, although it's debatable whether town councillors realised the significance when deciding to install the Spanish city's first public surveillance cameras in Orwell Plaza.

Situated off the country's most famous walkway La Rambla, the area was named after British writer George Orwell, who arrived in Barcelona in 1936 to witness the Spanish Civil War. The irony of the placing of the CCTV cameras was not lost on the graffitti artist who added the name of Orwell's book 1984 which introduced the concept of the all-seeing Big Brother.

Nearly 60 years later, the writer is the reason for a remarkable European project linking the North-East, Yorkshire, Spain and France in a stage production of Orwell's revolutionary memoir Homage To Catalonia, being premiered next week.

A year of planning has gone into the co-production between Newcastle-based Northern Stage, West Yorkshire Playhouse in Leeds, Barcelona's Teatre Romea, Forum Barcelona 2004 and Paris's MC93 Bobigny.

Both Northern Stage, whose artistic director Alan Lyddiard has already staged Orwell's Animal Farm and 1984, and Teatre Romea's artistic director Calixo Bielto were keen to stage Homage To Catalonia. They were brought together by the British Council and plans for the co-production laid.

"The process was very hard, but at the same time very creative," says Bielto, artistic director of Teatre Romea, the oldest theatre in Barcelona and birthplace of Catalan theatre tradition. "George Orwell was in these streets. His relationship to the city was very close," he says. "Here he discovered the soul of something very important - of solidarity, freedom, and tolerance. A country where culture was very important. He discovered a fantastic landscape for his imagination."

THE production, with Bielto and Lyddiard as co-artistic directors, is directed by Catalan Josep Galindo with a cast of five English actors from Northern Stage Ensemble and five Catalan performers. "I like it that we can do the production in English and Catalan. In one scene there's a big idealistic argument - one is talking in Catalan, one in English. That's fantastic," says Bielto.

The adaptation by Catalan writer Pablo Ley and English writer Allan Baker, was equally collaborative. "They went to similar landscapes to the war, working really close to the landscape and talking to old people who knew the war. That's a very special way of working," he says. "Around the production we will have talks by people about the war and a man who lives in Sitges and knew Orwell well."

Bielto will be among a large contingent of Spanish guests at the official first night at West Yorkshire Playhouse, Leeds, on Monday. "It will be very emotional and very special," says Bielto, who anticipates the Barcelona run, part of the Forum Barcelona 2004 cultural programme, will be equally special.

When George Orwell arrived in Barcelona at the end of 1936, he was surprised to find a town "where the working class was in the saddle". Buildings had been seized by the workers, and draped with red flags or with the red and black flag of the anarchists. Servile forms of speech had disappeared, shops and cafes had been collectivised, private cars commandeered, and loudspeakers bellowed revolutionary songs all day and far into the night along La Rambla.

He wrote in Homage To Catalonia that there was a belief in the revolution and the future, a feeling of having suddenly emerged into an era of equality and freedom. Orwell went to write newspaper articles and ended up fighting for the republicans against the fascists. He was shot by a sniper's bullet through the throat, forced to fight against the communists, and ended up fleeing for his life.

If he arrived in Barcelona today, Orwell would be confronted by a mix of the old and the new. La Rambla is still full of people, in search of food, drink and relaxation, most of the day and night. An architectural surprise awaits round every corner, whether Gaudi's unfinished cathedral La Sagrada Familia or Port Olimpic with its modern marina and promendades. Traditional tapas bars nestle alongside familiar names like McDonalds, Dunkin' Donut and KFC.

That Barcelona period of his life is acknowledged to have greatly influenced Orwell's later writing, not least Homage To Catalonia. His time in Spain is remembered in an exhibition on show in Barcelona and which curator Miquel Berga, Orwell scholar and dean of humanities at Universitat Pompeu Fabra, hopes to bring to England next year.

"Orwell is not such an iconic figure in Spain as he is in Britain and other parts of the world, but he is very well-known on two counts - as an author of universal fame and one of the most respected witnesses of the Spanish Civil War," says English professor Berga, who's contributed to books and TV programmes about Orwell.

"He came to Spain because he responded to a symptom of the time. He was fully aware that the stand of the Spanish people against fascist aggression was, for the first time in a number of years, a clear-cut confrontation against the policies of fascist Europe," he says.

"Orwell, like many English people, thought if fascism was stopped in Spain it could make the bombs dropping on London less likely. He saw there was a revolution going on, and that made the whole experience even more interesting to him." Two more biographies were published to coincide with the centenary of his birth last year which, says Berga, "just proves he's a figure in a story so rich in contradictions and paradoxes that it's still fascinating for readers".

NORTHERN Stage artistic director Alan Lyddiard has been "obsessed" by Orwell for some time. His production of Animal Farm was premiered in Newcastle 11 years ago, and is still touring. He's also staged 1984, currently playing in New York.

"Orwell tells very good stories in a way that's nave but simple. What he's talking about is deep and dangerous, about power and the accumulation of power and how these human beings are consistently pushed down by other people," he says.

"Look at the world now, what's happening with the rise of Islam, events in Madrid, and Saddam Hussein. There's still these people who want power over others." He sees Orwell as a visionary, and hopes the European collaboration that has led to Homage To Catalonia is a sign of things to come. "Working with European colleagues on a piece of art, you can get a collaboration and understanding that politics fails to do," he adds.

* Homage To Catalonia: West Yorkshire Playhouse until April 3 (tickets 0113 213 7700), then Newcastle Playhouse from April 22 to May 8 (tickets 0191 230 5151).