Prick Up Your Ears is a new play inspired by the John Lahr biography of the late British playwright Joe Orton (Loot, Entertaining Mr Sloane), and the diaries of Orton himself, whose notorious life came to an abrupt and violent end at the height of his fame when he was battered to death by his lover, Kenneth Halliwell, in the Islington flat they shared, in 1967.

Bent sets Prick Up Your Ears five years earlier, in 1962, when RADA graduates and aspiring playwrights Orton and Halliwell are plotting their rightful place at the centre of London’s literary scene, whilst engaging in a secret crusade to ‘improve’ the local library books – all in the worst possible taste. After a short stay at Her Majesty’s pleasure, Orton is on the cusp of becoming the greatest and most notorious comic playwright since Oscar Wilde, but Halliwell remains indoors redecorating, reduced to sharing Orton’s success with their neighbour, Mrs Corden, over tea and a slice of Batternburg. 

Prick Up Your Ears is a darkly funny and moving play which imagines what really happened when, after years of creative collaboration, the door slammed shut and Halliwell was home alone. It tells the sensational story behind the domestic life of Orton and Halliwell, holed up in a tiny flat in Islington, trading well-trodden insults and hilarious put-downs like any old married couple. 

Prick Up Your Ears was also the title of John Lahr’s 1978 biography of Orton, upon which this play is based, and was adapted by Alan Bennett into a 1987 screenplay which starred Gary Oldman as Orton. 

Simon Bent (A Prayer For Owen Meany, Elling, Sugar Sugar) has created this new stage play which stars Chris New (Bent) as Orton and Con O’Neill – taking over from original star Matt Lucas – as Halliwell. New was nominated for Outstanding Newcomer in the 2006 Evening Standard Theatre Awards for his performance in Bent. O’Neill is a Laurence Olivier Award-winner whose recent stage credits include Faces In The Crowd, The Female Of The Species and the Caretaker.

For more about Prick Up Your Ears at the Comedy theatre, read the First Night Feature or the Big Interview with original star Matt Lucas.