Matt Lucas return to the stage as Kenneth Halliwell in Prick Up Your Ears
If you’re a theatre fan and dating in London, make sure you see Matt Lucas in the darkly funny play, Prick Up Your Ears.
The Little Britain star returns to the stage as Kenneth Halliwell in Daniel Kramer’s production, Prick up Your Ears – a darkly funny and moving ‘Ortonesque’ play, set in sixties London and written by Simon Bent.
Joe Orton (played by Chris New) and Kenneth Halliwell are RADA graduates, aspiring playwrights, and sometime lovers. They plot their rightful place at the centre of London’s literary scene whilst engaged in a secret crusade to “improve” the local library books, all in the worst possible taste of course, and acting out their own versions of popular radio dramas with an extra dash of innuendo.
But after a short interlude at Her Majesty’s pleasure, Joe is about to become the greatest and most notorious comic playwright since Oscar Wilde. Halliwell feels left behind and is reduced to sharing Joe’s success over tea and a slice of Battenberg with their neighbour Mrs Corden (played by Gwen Taylor).
The play was inspired by the John Lahr biography and the diaries of Joe Orton and imagines what really happened when after years of creative collaboration, the door slammed shut and Kenneth was home alone. It tells the sensational story behind the domestic life of Joe Orton and Kenneth Halliwell, holed up in a tiny flat in Islington, trading well-trodden insults and hilarious put-downs like any old married couple.
Joe Orton’s plays have shocked, outraged and delighted audiences for the past 40 years and include Entertaining Mr Sloane, The Erpingham Camp and Loot which was first produced at Theatre Royal Brighton in 1965, starring Kenneth Williams and Geraldine McEwan. Peggy Ramsey, the literary agent who discovered and nurtured Joe Orton’s talent, had a weekend home in the North Laine area for many years. Having had Orton to stay two weeks before his death, Peggy was to identify his body in August 1967. A plaque commemorating Peggy’s residence can be seen at 34 Kensington Place in Brighton where it was unveiled by Simon Callow in June this year.
Prick Up Your Ears runs until the 6th December at the Comedy Theatre, Panton Street, London, SW1Y 4DN. Tickets are priced between £17.50 and £49.50 and are available from the box office on 0870 0606637.
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