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Edited by John Lahr
Unexpurgated insight into the life of one British theatre's most controversial figure of the 60s
From December 1966 until his murder in August 1967, Joe Orton kept a series of diaries, which are one of the most candid and unfettered accounts of that remarkable era. Rejacketed and reissued with a new introduction by John Lahr, the diaries chronicle frankly and hilariously the literary successes (capped with an Evening Standard Award and overtures from the Beatles), the rejection of all conventions, and the astonishing sexual adventures (at his mother's funeral... with a dwarf in Brighton...) of a true literary iconoclast who believed there was no sense in being a rebel without applause. 'Very, very funny' Peter Ackroyd 'He is the Oscar Wilde of Welfare State gentility' Observer
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About Joe Orton Joe Orton was born on a housing estate in Leicester in 1933. During his short life he rose to fame as one of England's most provocative young dramatists and epitomised London in the swinging 1960s. His openly gay lifestyle has turned him into an iconic figure. He was murdered by his mentor and lover Kenneth Halliwell in 1967. John Lahr is the author of the biography of Joe Orton, Prick Up Your Ears. He also wrote the biography of his father the comedian Bert Lahr, Notes on a Cowardly Lion, as well as the critical study, Coward the Playwright. His novels are The Autograph Hound and Hot to Trot. He has published three collections of essays, Acting Out in America, Astonish Me and Automatic Vaudeville, of which the London Review of the Books said he was 'the Leavis of the performing arts'.
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