The Orton Diaries: Including the Correspondence of Edna Welthorpe and Others

by Joe Orton and John Lahr

Book Overview

The candid and sensational diaries of the brilliant 34-year-old playwright Joe Orton, written six months before he was murdered by his lover in 1967.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0060157437
• ISBN13: 9780060157432
• Release Date: January 1986
• Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers
• Length: 304 Pages
• Weight: 1.58 lbs.

Customer Reviews

Orton fans!!!

Absolutely wonderful! A look inside the mind of a genius. Playful, honest, funny and a bit disturbing at times. Orton was a risk taker who got off on the danger of his pursuits as much as just getting off! I love this man and wish he was still around. The last few pages of his diary are missing as well, which just makes the life of Joe Orton even more intriguing. John Lahr has done a beauitful job.

Great Diary. Honest and True Confession.

Joe Orton and Kenneth Halliwell were both murdered. It was totaly organised and cover up murder. Orton had many enemies, and many jelous homophobic people around Him. That time even in London, if one was openly Gay, and promote sex in public, it was exremely dangerous. What he did and write in his time, was totaly taboo, and not exepted in English society. Only few people knew and know the true story behind Orton and Halliwell murder. I love the book about Orton life. He was a Dare Devil for His time, and died for Gay people liberation movement, like many before and after Him.

From the Mind of a Genius

Not a book for everyone, I found it very interesting. I can't say I would recommend it for anyone but those who have an interest in the art of writing, and perhaps more specifically, the plays and short life of Joe Orton. A gay man in 1960's London, when it was not fashionable to "come out," Orton was always true to himself and to his desires (as awful as they were). He was a great playwright. He was not a great person. His diary, recorded over the last six months of his life, captures a slice of history when London was at its last zenith since the Renaissance. His short life involved hit plays of outrageous farce, work with the Beatles, and inumerous actors, producers, and directors. John Lahr does an outstanding job of editing the diaries of an interesting man who was butchered in his sleep by the one person he was nothing without. I highly recommend it, together with "Prick up Your Ears," the biography also by John Lahr.

Fascinating minutae

Although I admire the principle of not excessively editing artists' diaries for publication, Lahr goes a little overboard in this one, leaving in every word from the last eight months of the diary's (and Orton's) life. So no one but a hardcore fan is really going to be interested in the endless meetings, correspondences and contract negotiations which provide the mundane background for the meat of the diaries: Orton's tempestuous relationship with Kenneth Halliwell, the lover who eventually kills him; and his promiscuous sex life. But for a fan, this diary IS fascinating, and knowing the end of Orton's life in advance does give even the most mundane details an eerie cast. For gay readers, the Tangier section gives a wonderfully intricate portrait of a lost gay refuge. For me, 4 stars -- for people who couldn't care less about Joe Orton, 2 stars.