- Hardcover: 400 pages
- Publisher: Methuen Publishing Ltd; First Edition edition (6 Nov 1986)
- Language English
- ISBN-10: 0413496600
- ISBN-13: 978-0413496607
- Product Dimensions: 23.6 x 15.7 x 3 cm
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 254,556 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- See Complete Table of Contents
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Product Description
Fine, 1st Editon. Large 8vo. 304pp. Colured illlustrated endpapers. Portrait fontispiece, many illustrations. Clean tight sound square very good, inscription to title page, no bookplate, crisp clean corners and edges. In like cloth with bright gilt text and unclipped pictorial dustwrapper. Appears unopened and unread.
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First Sentence
On 30 April 1967, the comedian Kenneth Williams strolled in Hyde Park with Joe Orton and Kenneth Halliwell, Orton's companion for sixteen years. Read the first page
Front Cover | Copyright | Table of Contents | Excerpt | Index | Back Cover
On 30 April 1967, the comedian Kenneth Williams strolled in Hyde Park with Joe Orton and Kenneth Halliwell, Orton's companion for sixteen years. Read the first page
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Front Cover | Copyright | Table of Contents | Excerpt | Index | Back Cover
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7 reviews
12 of 13 people found the following review helpful
Fascinating minutae
26 Jan 2000
Format:Paperback
Although I admire the principle of not excessively editing artists' diaries for publication, Lahr goes a little overboard in this one, leaving in every word from the last eight months of the diary's (and Orton's) life. So no one but a hardcore fan is really going to be interested in the endless meetings, correspondences and contract negotiations which provide the mundane background for the meat of the diaries: Orton's tempestuous relationship with Kenneth Halliwell, the lover who eventually kills him; and his promiscuous sex life. But for a fan, this diary IS fascinating, and knowing the end of Orton's life in advance does give even the most mundane details an eerie cast. For gay readers, the Tangier section gives a wonderfully intricate portrait of a lost gay refuge. For me, 4 stars -- for people who couldn't care less about Joe Orton, 2 stars.
5 of 7 people found the following review helpful
From the Mind of a Genius
25 May 2003
Format:Paperback
Not a book for everyone, I found it very interesting. I can't say I would recommend it for anyone but those who have an interest in the art of writing, and perhaps more specifically, the plays and short life of Joe Orton. A gay man in 1960's London, when it was not fashionable to "come out," Orton was always true to himself and to his desires (as awful as they were). He was a great playwright. He was not a great person. His diary, recorded over the last six months of his life, captures a slice of history when London was at its last zenith since the Renaissance. His short life involved hit plays of outrageous farce, work with the Beatles, and inumerous actors, producers, and directors. John Lahr does an outstanding job of editing the diaries of an interesting man who was butchered in his sleep by the one person he was nothing without. I highly recommend it, together with "Prick up Your Ears," the biography also by John Lahr.
Orton the Hilarious
6 May 2012
Format:Paperback
"The trouble with Western Society today is the lack of anything
worth concealing," teased the brilliant Joe Orton in 1967, shortly
before receiving a deadly cosh fr his jealous Signif Other. Orton,
the ultimate worldling whose plays reminded UK critics of Ben Jonson,
Shaw and an Oscar Wilde of the Welfare State, kept a diary during
the last months of his irreverent life (d. age 34) that bursts with
the upside down manners of his classic comedies.
Like a Restoration playwright he exercises the comedy of paradox --
with colloquial case. US comic writers aim for the punch-line (Neil
Simon) or the put-down (Dorothy Parker). Orton targets the mind with
verbal jousts like "Show your emotions in public or not at all."
The diary records his London life. After a trip to the barber, he says,
"My hair cut looks pretty good. It appears to be quite natural whilst
in actual fact being artificial. Which is a philosophy I approve of."
Overheard conversation between two ladies on a bus: "There's a lot of
blue about lately." The other replies, "Yes, and there's a lot of green
about too." After buying a china pig as a gift for his TV producer, he
reports that the clerk "packed it in a cardboard box that originally
held three Bronco toilet rolls. A more sensible present in many ways."
The Orton charm is YouTube visible in an Eamonn Andrews TVer from 1967.
He admits everything, within reason, and brings down the house. In life,
in theatre, in his diary -- too much was never enough for the wondrous
horseplay of Joe Orton.
worth concealing," teased the brilliant Joe Orton in 1967, shortly
before receiving a deadly cosh fr his jealous Signif Other. Orton,
the ultimate worldling whose plays reminded UK critics of Ben Jonson,
Shaw and an Oscar Wilde of the Welfare State, kept a diary during
the last months of his irreverent life (d. age 34) that bursts with
the upside down manners of his classic comedies.
Like a Restoration playwright he exercises the comedy of paradox --
with colloquial case. US comic writers aim for the punch-line (Neil
Simon) or the put-down (Dorothy Parker). Orton targets the mind with
verbal jousts like "Show your emotions in public or not at all."
The diary records his London life. After a trip to the barber, he says,
"My hair cut looks pretty good. It appears to be quite natural whilst
in actual fact being artificial. Which is a philosophy I approve of."
Overheard conversation between two ladies on a bus: "There's a lot of
blue about lately." The other replies, "Yes, and there's a lot of green
about too." After buying a china pig as a gift for his TV producer, he
reports that the clerk "packed it in a cardboard box that originally
held three Bronco toilet rolls. A more sensible present in many ways."
The Orton charm is YouTube visible in an Eamonn Andrews TVer from 1967.
He admits everything, within reason, and brings down the house. In life,
in theatre, in his diary -- too much was never enough for the wondrous
horseplay of Joe Orton.
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