BlackBox (Blithe Spirit and Bouncers), in association with Omi-Palone Theatre Company, bring you the World Premiere of Ortonesque. This new play looks at the extraordinary life and times of the outrageous playwright, Joe Orton, and his doomed relationship with long term collaborator and partner, Kenneth Halliwell, with a little help along the way from his alter ego, Mrs Edna Welthorpe.

From their first meeting at RADA to Joe’s rise as one of the twentieth century’s most influential dramatists, the piece explores what it was to be a gay man in 50s and 60s Britain, the pros and cons of fame and celebrity, and the power shift within a fragile and claustrophobic relationship.

The story takes us from their squalid little one-bedroom flat in Islington to the cafes and Kasbahs of Tangiers; from the glamour of the glittering West End to the not so glittering cottages of North London; from adulation to brutal murder!

Full of acerbic wit, illicit encounters and haddock, Ortonesque, charts the meteoric rise of the writer of Loot, Entertaining Mr Sloane and What the Butler Saw, and the subsequent, tragic end to his short but brilliant life brought about by the one person that truly loved him.

“It’s a Greek tragedy with library books!”

Ortonesque (adjective), relating to or characteristic of the English playwright Joe Orton or his works, especially in being unconventional and darkly comic.

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