The title of this rereleased classic is the invention of Joe Orton’s biographer John Lahr, on whose book this is based: for a brief 60s moment, this brilliant young dramatist really did force London’s theatre world to listen to his outrageous and very tumescent wit. Then, after a grisly, gloomy murder-suicide, it was all over. Orton was bludgeoned to death 50 years ago by his partner, Kenneth Halliwell, apparently convulsed with jealous rage at Orton’s success, undiminished cottaging and ingratitude for the stability and mentorship that Halliwell had given him. (Maybe Kenneth was in his way Orton’s Bosie, or his vengeful Marquess of Queensberry, or both.)
Stephen Frears’ terrific 1987 movie – adapted by Alan Bennett from the Lahr book – is back in cinemas and Gary Oldman’s superb livewire performance is now virtually an authentic testament of the man himself. Alfred Molina’s morose, self-hating Halliwell is also utterly convincing: Bennett’s script cleverly conveys their long years of bickering domesticity. He also puts Lahr in the picture, played by Wallace Shawn, and gives his wife-slash-secretary Anthea (Lindsay Duncan) a Halliwellesque resentment at her own lowly position.
Vanessa Redgrave is the legendary agent Peggy Ramsay, who shrewdly describes the late Kenneth as Orton’s “first wife”, but she herself is the widow. Interestingly, this film doesn’t show Orton or Halliwell encountering homophobia as such, but does show how tricky it was negotiating the pre-67 “don’t-ask-don’t-tell” convention that applied in the arts. Bennett’s script shows Beatles manager Brian Epstein – a gay man on the same open-secret terms as Orton – wryly turning down his Beatles script on the grounds that it implied the Fab Four were having sex with each other.
As for Oldman’s Orton, he has a cheeky determination to make the most of life, love, sex and pleasure: easier perhaps, when you’re a success, but never entirely easy in buttoned-up Britain. Had he lived, Orton might have got the Nobel prize like Pinter, or wound up doing Strictly Come Dancing. It is a love story of a sort. I’d never noticed before that this film came out the same year as Withnail & I.
