Joe Orton Laid Bare
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- Опубліковано 6 лют 2025
- Film celebrating the wit, work and world of groundbreaking 1960s playwright Joe Orton in his own words and those of friends and colleagues. Fifty years since his murder at the hands of his lover Kenneth Halliwell, the film charts Joe's brief meteoric rise and tragic demise, and celebrates his unique comic voice as well as his significant role in the culture of 60s swinging London.
Antony Sher, Freddie Fox and Jaime Winstone lead an all-star ensemble cast, bringing to life excerpts of Orton's hilarious work for the TV generation, while Bryan Dick plays Orton himself, walking the viewer through the streets Joe inhabited and using his diary to revive the voice of one of Britain's most controversial comic writers.
The film builds to a tense and surprising conclusion as the circumstances of Joe's death are re-examined and new evidence reveals a sinister and powerful figure at the centre of events that led to his murder. Interviewees include Kenneth Cranham, Sir Michael Codron, Christopher Hampton, Patricia Routledge, Orton biographer John Lahr and Joe's sister Leonie.
Thanks for making this available. There were a great many very talented people around in the sixties and Orton was one. It strikes me as a very violent and self destructive period all the same.
They were like monkeys playing with matches in a barrel of gunpowder. Also, certain dark sectors of the establishment were anxious for them to promote this lifestyle to seduce the masses to fall under it.
I remember first watching this I had lost hop of ever seeing it again (let alone here). Thanks for uploading it and sharing it with us all who love/were inspired by Joe Orton.
did u ever find the lost hop?
@@billyunterbuchner9197 did u ever find the missing yo?
😂@@billyunterbuchner9197
Love how Mike Phillips (the librarian) was just dying of laughter
He’s quite a character himself
I expect he's led quite an interesting life, you know, since that happened.
Exactly yes and I hope that's what Joe was always heading towards. Best wishes 🙏 😊
It was a different librarian in the Arena documentary.
So very excellent. Thank you.
Joe was only in his 30’s , I’m glad to see his sister seems more at peace of course she will always feel terrible grief yet the 80’s documentaries are heartbreaking to watch as joes sister is still in shock , Joe orton sister is equally intelligent & I feel those two may have collaborated together
This is a fine piece of work. I enjoyed so many aspects of it. It just remains to say: RIP Joe and Kenneth
« Give me your word you’re not…vaginalatrous ». What a line - what a word 😂! Saw Ronald Fraser playing the same part (Beryl Reid as Kath, Malcom McDowell as Sloane) at the Royal Court, mid 70s. He was great too - « The air round Twickenham was like wine ».
I have read and watched 'Prick Up Your Ears' and I am now reading the diaries, but this is giving me more of a complete picture of the whole scene than expected. Thanks!
What a very apt subject for the BBC. They must be squealing with delight!
Leonie should have become a writer. Honest. Intelligent. Observant. All the requirements. ❤
The actor playing Orton in the diary narratives is the excellent Bryan Dick. xx SF
Excellent, I’ve not watched this before.
thanks for letting us know
Is there anything else you haven't watched in the last two years?
Why the responses here? It’s such an innocent comment. It gets the views up. I mean I guess the replies do to but mean spirited. Not good form
Leonie describing the death scene at Noel Road is like a line straight out of an Orton play "what was the flat like? it was awful like someone had thrown a tin of red paint all over the walls".
sorry, i'm not seeing it
@@billyunterbuchner9197 I'm referring to the macabre nature of some of Orton's plays. Loot for example.
@@Edward1312 Yes. I get the connection.
Joe was very critical of most of his contemporaries in the theatre, writers, directors, producers and actors. But he was very complimentary when it came to Kenneth Cranham, who played Wilson in Ruffian and Hal in Loot.
He loved Kenneth Williams despite the disaster of Loot 1.0, as it might be called today. And Kenneth W was wrong for the role, something that Joe realized after he set about writing Loot 2.0, an unqualified West End success, which, like Sloane before it, didn't travel successfully to Broadway.
As for contemporary playwrights, Joe was only complimentary about Pinter. And fair play too, Joe had to travel through Pinter's style to refine his own.
I've yet to see a production of Sloane or Loot, whether on stage or film/TV that truly jibes with Joe's stylistic desires. I've not seen What the Butler Saw so can't speak to it. Even the production of Loot that I performed in was way off.
Kenneth C was very close to joe as a friend , yet KH was so bitter & jealous he even accused KC & joe of having a affair which was ludicrous, KC literally bent over backwards “ excise the pun” for Halliwell yet to be called ugly by halliwell
Loot improved mostly due to Michael Bates being a better choice for Truscott - endowing him with a genuine sense of stupidity and menace.
Really enjoyed this..i lived in a ground floor flat at noel rd in 1980 next door to the Island Queen pub , i wonder if joe and Kenneth frequented this pub ???
Yes they did, practically lived in there.
Guinness for Joe, Gin and Valium for Ken.
@@Johnconnohow do you know they used to drink there? I’m interested because I frequent this pub often 😀
@@PopprinceUSA stuff like that will be local stories. Not the kind of that’s verifiable unless you believe local stories which are often well worth believing
Rosie Cavaliero now known for playing Mrs.Braithwaite in BBC's 'Worzel Gummidge'.
A proposed statue to Orton was cancelled recently because it came to light that he had a sexual penchant for underage teenage boys, commenting to one of his friends that he "preferred 15 year olds". It underlines the general moral confusion in the 1960s. Britain was still strangled by the intolerant, hypocritical morals and deference of Victorian Britain. People like Orton were leading the charge in tearing it down. But they offered a dangerous destructiveness in its place. The "permissive society" of the 60s no doubt led to a much more progressive world. But it also enabled a lot of predators.
Enabling a lot of predators was probably the prime motive behind the social changes.
".. came to light..." It's been in the public domain for decades, I suggest that there's other reasons for denying a memorial...
@@DaveSCameronthings can be in the public domain for a very long time without people really giving it much thought. The statue focussed minds.
It destroyed so much that was valuable. Doubtless we needed some relaxation but we should have let trained ethicists and psychologists lead it not horny blokes in public life
It wasn't news. He documented his sex offending in detail in his diaries.
I'd seen a lot of that in the RAF! (Sloane had a salami in his trousers - with which he negotiated his life) Great line from Dudley which could have been straight out of an Orton play.
Just watched the 1987 film w/ G. Oldman last night.
Many thanks.
The sister is an amazing clever woman!
Joe Orton.......one of my heroes !!!
a hero? Why? If I may ask. love, Markus
Please read my comments perhaps you might feel differently when you have.
A literary hero of mine also my friend 📚👍☘️
He was a self confessed child abuser
Jamie Winstone is absolutely hopeless.
"Fucked By Monty" ha ha ha. Fabulous.
Watch the film "Prick Up Your Ears"" ,,,,, excellent film about Joe and Kenneth's lives together, beginning to end.............
Brilliant movie, I've watched it many times. But I reckon the guy in this doco looks more like the real Orton than Gary Oldman did. But yeah, Prick Up Your Ears, what a film.
@@NewFalconerRecords Gary had a sly sexiness that was pretty fabulous, though.
@@giovanna722 I thought Gary Oldman had Orton's persona to a T. Brilliant acting...
It’s wonderful to see the plays unedited. during the 60’s they had watchmen telling the actors they couldn’t say certain lines , no wonder Joe Orton wanted to push the boundaries as what went on in reality in private & what was presented to society was such hypocrisy,so many people who were Gay put other gay men in prison, I can imagine J Orton would of written plays about the censors ludicrous hypocrisy
Wonderful
Dr Ismay's voice recording: he sounds just like Kenneth Williams!
Rest well you extraordinary man.
And shout out to you and your wonderful channel here, the only way to the Orton treasure on YT. 📚 ☘️ 💙🙏😉😊
@@DaveSCameronthe BBC were excellent. Still has the potential to be but it needs a lot of reform and a stylistic reset
@minui8758 I was referring to this YT Channel and certainly not the failure that is the BBC, they demand payment for listening to their opinions on the world instead of the neutral facts from my younger years? Even then they were not always correct in their choices but at least they never chose to force one side down our throats!
Ismay felt Halliwell was suicidal but not homicidal. Peter Willies may have counted on this to eliminate Ken only only to see it backfire with Joe as collateral damage.
My nephew recently graduated Wirral grammar school and I think maybe that experience could have a part to play in this awful tragedy... ☘️👍
Didn’t Willies ring Joe up one day about an important dinner to say please come alone if you can not realising that he was talking to Halliwell. They frequently imitated one another on the phone when answering.
after reading the diaries and the endless descriptions of child sex abuse in tangiers engaged in by orton and halliwell (and many others) i've not been able to appreciate his talent in the way i used to :(
@@davis7099 sounds like you were never raped as a child. how nice for you.
@@eepipes Hmm! I understand that he embraced the experiences he *suffered as a young boy and your experience does come across as a deeply brutal and negative one so I can't equate them both.
Teenagers to judge from the pictures
@@vauxtc 12 - 14 years old according to joe orton's diaries
Orton was by far the worst abuser though. He mocked Halliwell about it. He writes about mocking Halliwell for not being as 'virile' as he is because Halliwell did not engage in penetrative sex with boys which he did
They loved the landlady & Islington, yet joe of course didn’t deserve what happened to him , yet he was cruel with openly having sex constantly whilst in a a full time relationship & bringing back bf’s , joe should of payed for rooms in Islington ie been close to Ken yet had space
The Ronnie comment on the ruffian play I always thought it was a indirect comment about the openly gay Kray
Always enjoy revisiting this lovely, sad documentary x
I agree with his sister in other interviews , it was horrendous & wicked to murder joe , yes it was a toxic relationship & peter also twisting the knife , yet he stole a brother & a great talent , we wouldn’t know about KH without his vile act
Not to condone what happened, but it could be argued that there wouldn't be the playwright Joe Orton without Halliwell. Halliwell had significant input into the plays up to Loot (for example, the reference to Sloane as "our play"). The fact that Orton would never acknowledge this publicly, along with everything else that was happening in their relationship, was surely one of the things that drove Halliwell over the edge. The narrative arc of the relationship was at first Halliwell was the dominant force, then they became equals, then Orton became spectacularly successful. It was obviously very hard to bear for Halliwell's psyche.
@@akiva7774Halliwell killed Orton because he was jealous and knew he would eventually leave him. He is a killer and deserves absolutely no credit.
@@Misagonna88 you shouldn’t underestimate the effect on someone of having a partner who was forever cottaging and having sex in public places which was very dangerous in those days .
Why wasn't Terry Stamp in any of Orton's stuff? He'd have been great.
Orton would have taken care of him as well, he didn't get a penny out of Pasolini.
Leonie has fantastic skin.
Patricia Routledge is so perfect for Orton, she would be an effortlessly fussy Enda Welthorpe...
Kenneth craham was v close to them personally & KH was getting so paranoid he even accused KC of having affair with joe & insulting KC calling him ugly
Ty
Tragic 😥
Orton didn't like Strawberry Field Forever. Did Lennon ever find out?
😂, what a strange question in the middle of this, I have a feeling Joe had some fantastic views on The Fab Four but crushingly we'll never know. ☘️🙏
Leonie Orton should have been a writer. Very believable, which is the main issue when a writer takes the pen and begins to writer. Veracity.
God that guy playing orthan is a twin of joe
Oscar Wilde was sentenced to a 19th Century British Work House. The intention was to break Oscar Wild. It did.
Hard labour in prison was much much worse than the Union Workhouses, as terrible as they were
@@minui8758 So true. Utter cruelty toward the inmates, utter humiliation and physical mistreatment.
The establishment’s tame rebel (this is the BBC, remember?)
Dudley looks so like William Blake.
When Ken was 10 his mother died in front of his eyes. He was traumatised for the rest of his short life
Not to mention his father committing suicide.
Forget about that your right
That’s no justification to smash his boyfriends head in with a hammer
The mother was stung by a bee. It adds a touch of freakishness to the whole thing.
@@asa1973100 no it doesn’t justify it. But it mitigates responsibility in the courts eyes
I tried hard, but I just can't like Joe Orton. I think he's over-rated as a playwright, good but not great. People are attracted to his scandalous "bad boy" personality for some reason, more than his literary talent. Not a positive character in any way for me. The life he and his boyfriend lived was headed for disaster from the very beginning. That kind of extreme, obsessive, jealous possessiveness has destroyed many couples, both gay and straight.
The funny stuff was the library books. I don't find the plays amusing or clever. Joe came along at a point in time where people were so bored and yearning to be shocked by very little. It had all been done before by the likes of Marie Lloyd and other music hall acts.
I initially thought very similar but persevered with his work and there's a line about him eavesdropping on buses and it gave me a different view of him, his work really is simply a mirror of our daily banal and often preposterously funny lives here in our scepteted islands. Best wishes 🙏 🇬🇧 📚😉
His work is sub-Pinter meets Carry On. Not even great actors can make it watchable. Maybe it made sense at the time.
@@intelligencelimited2708 Can you give me an example of something of Pinters you have in mind Sir?
One For The Road@@DaveSCameron
Orton reflects what’s happening with American evangelicals in 2020.
Winnie wallace ..Joe Orton I'm afraid I thought he was bonkers.
This is so strange I just literally just watch prick up your ears Alfred Molina and loved every minute Emma w*** is like rise of the Titanic takes me 3 days nice piece of Haddock and I bought my own Ham I'm not one to b**** but that one had a lot of activity upper back entrance Carry On Sergeant Gary Oldman was brilliant as John Orton cheap clothes suit me also in the film Derek Jarman is in it as an artist you was an old Queen from London now I was not around at the time of Joe Orton and Kenneth Halliwell
What in Christ’s name are you talking about?
ListenToBigFace I’m scratching my head too!😀
I think - perhaps - a lot has been done in this area already; so to speak?
A scratching? Is that sufficient?
It's a poem.
Stripped?
That awful music at the beginning!
Love!
swinging sixties, homosexuality, crime, library, prison, playwright, murdered, boyfriend, promiscuity, funny, diary, relarionship, sexual revolution, drugs, hypocrisy, complacency, bricklayer, gardener,
White Y Fronts
You left out the crimes against children
Poor Joe. Hope all his family ,especially Leoni, enjoyed the royalties.
Oscar Wilde was not flabby he could handle himself
Yep, he was a useful boxer and when some Bullingdon-type yahoos raided his rooms at Magdalen College, Oxford, he punched out the ringleader and threw the others downstairs. Ironic really, considering how Queensbury used to like hanging out with prize-fighters.
He was flabby and famously a dandy. He was used to a comfortable life and little exercise or physical labour which is why prison destroyed his health so much so quickly
@@douglasmilton2805that is when he was a very young man
the young orton is the WORST actor of the world
Kenneth H. was insane from the beginning. Sane people miss it; professionals do not. He may have had Borderline Personality Disorder, among other things. BPD is characterized by an insane fear of being abandoned. Fear and Violence often travel together.
I’m not sure professionals call BPD on its own “insanity”
The fear is not insane. Usually it's because people have been abandoned many times before. People with bpd also aren't born insane, they pretty much universally have severe childhood trauma which Kenneth did
People with bpd are more likely to be violent towards then others. They also are vulnerable to abuse. They are more likely to be victims of violence then perpetrators of it
@@minui8758they don't
Bpd is characterised by many things. Extreme fear of abandonment and desperate attempts to avoid real or imagined abandonment is only one symptom and one symptom does not a diagnosis make
Any one who experienced what he had as a child would most likely be a unstable adult
I read John Lars book what killed Joe was he was to soft hearted to leave halliwell did not want to hurt kèn
Terrible Irish accent , he sounds American it’s a mess , shame such a great play
Prick Up Your Ears!
Joe way of dealing with with this evil world laugh at it
Keneth haliwell was a nutter and killeed a amzing talent RIzp Joe ortan😢😢😢😢😢😢
Orton was a paedophile. Kenneth almost certainly had undiagnosed ptsd