I guess George Orwell was even more talented that I thought he was.

Not only did he rip Communism to shreds in the classic Animal Farm , and fortell the very possible coming Big Brother is watching you scenarios, but he also wrote this delightful comedy.

The story is set back in the 1930s in London, where a very talented copy writer at an ad agency decides to quit his job - right after receiving a promotion and rise - to pursue his dream of becoming the next literary giant of the English language. He dreams of writing great poetry and naturally making oodles of money, enabling him to live like a king and have women queuing up to be bedded.

Reality proves a little tougher.

He ends up working in a bookshop - even poets have to eat, you know - while sponging off his long-suffering sister, his girlfriend, and his publisher.

After some modest success, he blows all he earned on a slap-up dinner, before getting drunk, and getting arrested for the trouble. This unfortunate incident means no more job and no more place to stay.

Out on the street, his publisher friend gets him a job in the seedy (as in: dirt poor) part of town, where he revels in the filth and the realness of the population.

Until his lovesick girlfriend decides to get him out of there and back to reality the only way she knows how.

The title of the book is a take-off of the communist hymn "Keep the Red Flag Flying," with the aspidastra in place of the red flag. This plant is meant to be the emblem of staid, middle class British respectability, which our hero so tries to avoid.

Orwell tries to highlight the silliness of the bohemian lifestyle, where those who denouce the 'money god' find trying to survive without bowing to it extremely difficult. Even our hobos and beggars can not live without it.

The book is somewhat autobiographical, and no doubt a product of its time, much like Rand's "Atlas Shrugged" was a product of the 1950s.

I found the film very funny (the humour is in the dialogue, not slapstick American drivel), the performances good (though whether people like that really exist is another issue), and Mike Batt's score enjoyable as usual. A problem I had with the structure was that the hero had no real goal, apart from trying to be a successful poet while sliding downhill and alienating all those who cared about him.

But in the end, like all good fairy stories, everything works out and middle-class respectability triumphs.