SPARKED by the ideology of socialism, a young man made a journey to Barcelona to be a part of the realisation of a Marxist ideal. The year was 1936, the young man was journalist, soldier of truth and visionary writer George Orwell, and his fly-on-the-wall account of the Spanish Civil War was contained in book form in Homage To Catalonia.

And there, contained, it had remained ever since. Until now, when another link has been made between England and Barcelona in a cultural exchange that puts down a marker for interaction between European theatre companies.

As part of the West Yorkshire Playhouse focus on Orwell, the Leeds theatre has forged links with Newcastle company Northern Stage and Teatre Romea, the Barcelona theatre company run by the enfant terrible of Spanish theatre, Calixto Bieto. Paris has come on board too: the play will visit MC93 Bobigny in the French capital later this month, as well as Newcastle and Barcelona in May and June for the Barcelona Forum 2004.

This international collaboration, developed with the British Council, brings together British and Spanish actors and production staff, and its scale of ambition falls only just short of Icarus in flight.

With its multitude of characters, Homage To Catalonia had been deemed one of those books that would resist the switch from page to stage but writers Pablo Ley and Allan Baker and Calixto Bieto's protg, director Josep Galindo, have set about this Everest challenge with the relish of a Sherpa.

The result is a multi-media, multi-language performance - English, Catalan, and Spanish Castillian - with a multiple focus too. The cast of six men and four women weaves a journey through the Spanish Civil War, bringing to life the disparate Republican rising against Castro's Fascists in the first half, and the rising tide of Communist suspicion in the second, when tidiness replaces clutter on stage.

It is a messy journey of discovery, a deliberate, even reckless policy of theatre presentation that seeks to mirror the madness and confusion and disorder of the time, when idealists from Europe, Britain and America joined the Revolution in a spirit of adventure and social justice. Today that idealism would more likely be focused on charity work in Africa or Bosnia.

Theatre de Complicit and Kneehigh Theatre, and Pilot Theatre at their best, have made a virtue of multi-media theatre. Here, the back projection of Carles Caparros's film footage provides a running commentary throughout, providing an avenue for subtitles too, but truth be told it is as much a mesmerising distraction as a documentary aide de memoir. Craig Conway's Orwell thankfully comes more to the fore as the production progresses, but he has to compete against the grand scale when he should inform it.

Updated: 10:05 Wednesday, March 31, 2004