The Orton Experience
Currently Leicester city council are holding a celebration of the life of one of our most culturally significant writers; Joe Orton.
Joe Orton was a writer of plays that, particularly for the time, were outrageously risque and macabre not to mention extremely funny, his most famous being 'Loot', 'Entertaining Mr Sloane' and 'What the Butler saw', he also co-wrote a few novels that were published posthumously.
This Year is the fortieth anniversary of his death and so a number of events are being held around the city. It's funny really because Mr Orton was not what you would call a fan of Leicester in fact it was probably Joe's view of Leicester as an oppressive grim industrial town that created his need to escape and become a 'somebody'. His childhood was spent on the council estate, ominously named 'The Saff', his then home is not two minutes away from where I grew up and even closer to where I live now. It was this and the up and coming events that prompted me to read 'The Orton Diaries.' which cover the last nine months of his life leading up to his death.
In August 1967 Joe was murdered by his lover Kenneth Halliwell, who then commited suicide leaving only a note reading "If you read these diaries all will be explained. KH. PS.Especially the later part."
Last Saturday Mick and I went to a talk at the museum to hear Joe's sister Leonie speak about their early lives. Joe was often ill as a kid and so unable to go to school he began instead to devour books. The local library, (known to us locals as the porkpie library) was their sanctuary as kids, a warm and safe place to go when there parents were out at work, as they often were. She spoke of the young Joe's theatrical flair, his putting on plays in the garden and dressing up as Oberon from a Midsummer's Night's Dream by covering himself in green emulsion paint and his mother's bedspread. She warmly recalled how very unlike the other boys on the estate he was.
It was through his acting that Joe made his first break. He was awarded a scholarship at RADA and it was here that he met Kenneth, who at the time was 25, 7 years his senior. Kenneth took Joe under his wing and taught him all he knew about literature and together they began to collaborate on novels. They spent ten years living together in London in near isolation, working hard during the winter so they could spend the summer months writing.
Their work was admired by many publishers but they just couldn't get a deal, the writing was extremely influenced by Oscar Wilde, the language being very aesthetic and flowery, this was now the 50's and it was thought their just wouldn't be a market especially as it may be deemed as 'homosexual' writing.
Eventually Kenneth stopped writing but Joe continued. As they moved into the 60's Joe's writing began to become influenced by more modern writers like Alan Stillitoe who were writing about the realities of working class life, to which Joe, being 'from the gutter' as he put it, could relate.
During the time they were receiving rejection after rejection for their novels, Joe and Kenneth appauled at the quality of books that were available at the local Islington library, began defacing some of the book jackets. They would change the cover pictures and blurb, then place them back on the shelves. (They're currently on display at the New Walk museum and they are extremely funny.) Eventually they were caught and the police raided their home. Discovering two men living in such close quarters, the authorities put two and two together. At this point homosexuality was still illegal and although they were never charged, their prison sentences of six months were unusually long for the crime of defacing library books. This was said to have given Joe something to kick back at and his writing suddenly stepped up a rung. Kenneth however, who had had a traumatic childhood (he suffered with the loss of his mother at a young age, then his fathers suicide as a teenager) did not cope very well with prison, this seemed to mark the begining of the deteriation of his mental health and around this time he attempted suicide.
The rest was history. Joe became a respected and famous playwrite, whilst Kenneth although being a key influence and support to Joe remained in his shadow. Unable to be, in the eyes of the public, anything more than Joe's assistant. In reality the two had a deep respect and love for one another and were quite unseparable and although Joes new found fame and Kenneth's troubles with depression took it's toll on the relationship, Joe's sister for one, believes they were always extremely solid. Leonie believes that Joe's murder was not due to a jealous rage as commonly thought, just that Kenneth was very very sick and was not receiving the right treatment. Kenneth was due to be checked in as an inpatient at the mental hospital the very day there bodies were discovered. In 1967 although homosexuality had literally just become legal it was still considered a mental illness and something that should be cured. Kenneth and Joe had always openly rejected the idea that one should be ashamed to be homosexual in fact they believed in the creative potential of the classical greek model. They were early advocates of gay pride at a time when this was incredible difficult, Joes plays broke down so many barriers because not only did they promote working class values but also, in a covert manner, gay values. Kenneth being made to enter a psychatric establishment that could potentially destroy his beliefs, was terribly frightening, especially in his fragile mid-breakdown state. Joe's sister believes that Kenneth felt he had no way out other than suicide and that he couldn't bear to leave without Joe. The two almost being as one.
The Orton diaries don't explain the murder as Kenneth had hoped, some believe that the last few pages are missing. There are theories that Joe was having an affair with an Oxford Don or someone famous and the police decided to remove the evidence to protect them. Some believe that Kenneth's reaction was indeed a jealous rage, that he was sick of being unappreciated as Joe's notoriety grew. I guess we'll never really know.
The later theory was the one used in the biographical film of Joe's life 'Prick up your Ears'. But it doesn't quite sit right with me. When we watched the film recently I woke in the night full of the horror of those last scenes and I was absolutely convinced there was much more to it than that.
Last week Mick and I visited the Blue Plaque commemerating Joe's childhood home, his actual house has been knocked down and replaced with an equally dismal bungalow, for years the owners of which wouldn't allow a blue plaque to be placed on there wall, whiether through fear of disturbing there satelite dish signal or because Joe is clearly a subversive and a gay icon I'm not too sure. This seems to have been the attitude of the city for many years, gleefully we will claim the roots of Engelbert Humperdink and the Attenbourough brothers, David and Dickie, but Orton on the whole has been ignored. This is why it is great news that, forty years after his death, Joe is finally getting some recognition in the form of this exhibition.
Last night I chuckled my way through the 1970 film version of 'Loot' (starring our Dickie as Inspector Truscott.) Joe had such an individual voice, his dialogue is so quick witted that you barely have time to breath. It is a sad twist of fate that without Kenneth, Joe would probably have never found this voice, and yet his gift came hand in hand with a tragic end. It is also curious that his writing was so concerned with death when his name will be forever bound to the story of his own demise.
In fact I would go as far to say that much of Orton's work seems to have an uncanny potentousness that demonstrates, as is my belief, that our lives, particularly our creative lives, are full of tiny hints forbodding our destiny.
It is also my belief that in a society, like ours, that would sooner sweep Death under the carpet than face up to it's existance, people like Joe, who openly laugh in it's face are all the more important. This was his gift and he went about it in such an individual and original way that we had to make up a new word for it.
Thanks Joe. Thanks Kenneth. Thank goodness for the Ortonesque.

Photos;
1. Poster for 'Crimes of Passion' an double-bill of Orton plays.
2. The cover of The Orton Diaries.
3. One of Joe and Kenneth's defaced library books.
4. Joe on holiday in Tangiers
5. Joe's Entertaining Mr Sloane Scrapbook of reviews currently on view at the 'Ortonesque' exhibition at the New Walk Museum, Leicester.