‘Prick up Your Ears’ is a new play by Simon Bent about the life of playwright Joe Orton. It will open at the Comedy Theatre in the West End on the 30th of September with previews starting on the 17th of September. There has already been a biography and a film of the same name.

The play, as you would expect when the subject is Joe Orton, is darkly comic. It examines his relationship with Kenneth Halliwell which ended in 1967 with their deaths. Halliwell first bludgeoned Orton to death and then committed suicide.

The play concentrates on the domestic life of the two writers and is set in the tiny flat in Islington in which they lived. Orton will be played by Chris New who has some great stage credits behind him. He appeared at the National Theatre in ‘The Reporter’ and ‘Bent’ at the Trafalgar Studios. Halliwell is to be played by Matt Lucas, best known as one half of the team behind hit television show, ‘Little Britain’. Lucas last appeared in the West End when he took over the part of Leigh Bowery in the original production of Boy George’s show ‘Taboo’.

This is likely to be a sell out so buy your theatre tickets now.

This entry was posted on Friday, June 26th, 2009 at 8:47 am and is filed under Shows Info, Theatre News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.