The Orton Diaries by John Lahr
To be young, good-looking, healthy, famous, comparatively rich, and happy is surely going against nature. When Joe Orton (1933-1967) wrote those words in his diary in May 1967, he was being hailed as the greatest comic playwright since Oscar Wilde for his darkly hilarious Entertaining Mr. Sloane and the farce hit Loot, and was completing What the Butler Saw; but less than three months later, his longtime companion, Kenneth Halliwell, smashed Orton's skull in with a hammer before killing himself. The Orton Diaries, written during his last eight months, chronicle in a remarkably candid style his outrageously unfettered life: his literary success, capped by an Evening Standard Award and overtures from the Beatles; his sexual escapades - at his mother's funeral, with a dwarf in Brighton, and, extensively, in Tangiers; and the breakdown of his sixteen-year marriage to Halliwell, the relationship that transformed and destroyed him. Edited with a superb introduction by John Lahr, The Orton Diaries is his crowning achievement.
Joe Orton was an English playwright and author. His public career was short but prolific, lasting from 1964 until his death three years later. During this brief period he shocked, outraged, and amused audiences with his scandalous black comedies. His first play to be staged, Entertaining Mr. Sloane, won the London Critics' 'Variety' Award as the best play of 1964. Loot, his second play to be staged, won the Evening Standard Drama Award for the best play of 1966. The Ruffian on the Stair and The Erpingham Camp were performed as a double bill at the Royal Court Theatre in June 1967 under the title Crimes of Passion. His television plays, The Good and Faithful Servant and Funeral Games, were shown in 1967 and 1968. What the Butler Saw, his last play, was staged in 1969, and won a 1970 'Obie' Award for the best off-Broadway foreign play in New York. Both Entertaining Mr Sloane and Loot have been filmed. Orton also wrote a screenplay for the Beatles which was never filmed, but was subsequently published as Up Against It. The novels, Head to Toe, Between Us Girls, The Boy Hairdresser and Lord Cucumber, and the play Fred & Madge were published posthumously.
| SKU | Unavailable |
| ISBN 13 | 9780060914981 |
| ISBN 10 | 006091498X |
| Title | The Orton Diaries |
| Author | John Lahr |
| Condition | Unavailable |
| Binding Type | Paperback |
| Publisher | HarperCollins Publishers |
| Year published | 1988-05-01 |
| Number of pages | 0 |
| Cover note | Book picture is for illustrative purposes only, actual binding, cover or edition may vary. |
| Note | Unavailable |