Synopsis
The Orton Diaries
$16.99 Published by Methuen
Unexpurgated insight into the life of one British theatre's most controversial figure of the 60s
From December 1966 until his murder in August 1967, Joe Orton kept a series of diaries that prove to be one of the most candid and unfettered accounts of that remarkable era
They chronicle his literary success - capped with an Evening Standard Award and overtures from the Beatles
They chronicle his sexual escapades in the most unlikely of places - at his mother's funeral, in a pissoir on the Holloway Road, with a dwarf in Brighton, and, extensively, in Tangiers
Stylistically, the diaries show Orton, with Loot an established hit and What the Butler Saw in the making, at the very top of his form, outrageous and outrageously funny
REVIEWS
"He is the Oscar Wilde of Welfare State gentility" ~ Observer