Blog Archives

Joe Orton - a Lost Gay Icon?

I recently saw a small British film called Over the Edge. Its weird off-kilter sense of black comedy and unconventional gay characters reminded me of the plays and films of Joe Orton. Orton was an unbelievable trailblazer in 1960s British theatre. His irreverent, sexually-tinged, almost mean-spirited comedies should have been a flop in the socially conservative England, but instead his plays, “What the Butler Saw,” “Entertaining Mr. Sloane,”  “The Ruffian on the Stair,” “Loot” were indeed absolutely shocking and controversial but huge hits with an audience ready to enter the modern era. At the height of his ascending fame, he was infamously murdered by his lover Kenneth  Halliwell reportedly right before he was to meet the Beatles and present his script for their new film, Up Against It (which ends with all 4 Beatles naked in bed together.) His fame received a boost in the 1980s with the bio-film, Prick Up Your Ears with Gary Oldman playing the impish, sexually adventurous and prodigiously talented Orton. But ask a young homo today who is Joe Orton and 9 out of 10 times you’ll get a blank stare. What has happened to our gay history? This is really sad, because his work is still very current, just as outrageous and very funny today. Frustratingly, the only film adaptations of his plays are the classics, Entertaining Mr. Sloane, and Loot and BOTH are out of print in the USA. Even the film business has forgotten this amazing gay maverick.