Joe Orton in Tangiers. © The Orton Estate

Chloé Titcomb goes to Leicester's New Walk Museum for an exhibition about local boy Joe Orton.

Forty years after Joe Orton’s murder, Leicester’s New Walk Museum and Art Gallery is holding an exhibition to commemorate his life and celebrate his works as a scandalous playwright, author and diarist.

Ortonesque: Joe Orton 1933-1967, running from March 3 until May 7 2007, looks chronologically at Orton’s life in Leicester and London and also features, for the first time, a collection of Orton’s personal possessions including his typewriter and the fur coat bought for him by his agent Peggy Ramsay.

Brought up on Leicester’s tough Saffron Lane estate, Orton once commented, “I’m from the gutter…and don’t you ever forget it because I won’t.” (Orton Diaries, January 1967). The lack of a happy childhood in the Orton household is emphasised by the recollections of Orton’s youngest sister, Leonie Orton-Barnett and Orton’s juvenile diaries, which express the intense loathing of banal working life.

Mr Sloane Scrapbook. Image © Leicester City Council, Scrapbook courtesy of University of Leicester Special Collections

Orton was successful in gaining a scholarship from RADA in 1950 and it was there that he met Kenneth Halliwell, with a close bond developing between them. While his reports show Orton was evidently successful at RADA, they both set aside aspirations to become actors and instead focused their energies on writing together.

Their early works, including The Mechanical Womb and The Boy Hairdresser, were rejected by publishers, prompting Orton to begin writing alone. However Orton’s first manuscript, Between Us Girls, was also rejected and he decided to abandon novels in favour of plays.

Before Orton was to have any work published, both he and Halliwell were arrested in April 1962. They were charged with stealing books from Islington Library and altering dust jackets, blurbs and plates, an assortment of which are displayed; some of them outrageous, even by today’s standards.

The fur coat given to Orton by his agent Peggy Ramsay. © The Orton Estate

In a time when homosexuality was actively prosecuted by police, Orton claimed the severity of the six month prison sentences they both received was “because we were queers”.

Prison had a profound effect on Orton: “It affected my attitude towards society. Before I had been vaguely conscious of something rotten somewhere, prison crystallised this. The old whore society really lifted up her skirts and the stench was pretty foul.”

Upon his release, Orton found he could channel this mistrust into his writing, creating hilarious macabre satires, including his first play Entertaining Mr Sloane, which acquired him his agent Peggy Ramsay.

A whole range of Orton's personal effects are on display. © The Orton Estate

While causing great outrage, evident from the contemporary newspaper articles on display, the play was a great success and was voted joint winner of Best New British Play in Variety’s 1963 London Critics Poll.

The revised edition of Loot, which draws upon Orton’s personal experiences of the police, enjoyed similar outrage and success, earning him the London Evening Standard Award for Best Play of 1966, one of Orton’s personal belongings in the show.

Orton’s own scrapbooks for both plays, along with programmes, articles and reviews demonstrate the widespread uproar and success created by his then outrageous works.

Loot Scrapbook. Image © Leicester City Council, Scrapbook courtesy of University of Leicester Special Collections

Following the success of these two plays, Orton was asked to write a script for The Beatles, called Up Against It, of which a typed draft is on display. It was rejected by The Beatles’ management, however, exhorting a typically Orton response of “F*** them!”

Orton’s final play What The Butler Saw, published after his death in 1967, can only be described as riotous as he explores the notions of insanity and morality. It is now widely acknowledged to be his best work.

One of the key attractions of the exhibition is the display of exceedingly humorous letters Orton wrote under the pseudonym of ‘Mrs Edna Welthorpe’, which he used in an attempt to provoke authority into revealing their own idiocy but also to create controversy and publicity for his own works.

Orton's typewriter © The Orton Estate

Snapshots from Orton and Halliwell’s trip to Tangiers before Orton’s murder give a real insight into the private and relaxed Orton, something rarely accessible to the public.

Orton’s prolific career was brought to an abrupt end in August 1967 when Halliwell hit him nine times over the head with a hammer before taking his own life. A photocopy of Halliwell’s suicide note, ‘If you read his diary all will be explained’ is presented, as are the mature diaries referred to by Halliwell, detailing his life from 1966-1967.

However, when enjoying Orton’s candid diaries, it is worthwhile remembering that Orton always intended the diary for publication and it is therefore as much a literary work as it is an account of his life.

New Walk Museum and Art Gallery has drawn upon the playwright’s life and works to create an informative yet also hilarious exhibition, and as can only be expected of Orton, it does contain some strong language.