Celebrating Orton: Prick Up Your Ears

classified 15

Cinema Rediscovered 2017

Film

Please note: This was screened in July 2017

Director
Stephen Frears
Cast
Gary Oldman, Alfred Molina, Vanessa Redgrave
Details
105 mins, 1987, UK

We celebrate British playwright Joe Orton; 50 years after he passed away, the same year as the partial decriminalisation of homosexuality with a 30th Anniversary showing of Prick Up Your Ears (with thanks to Park Circus) and a brand new restoration of Entertaining Mr Sloane (with thanks to STUDIOCANAL)

Director Stephen Frears' film (blazingly scripted by Alan Bennett) is a brilliant and painfully raw portrait of the troubled, tragic relationship between the ill-fated playwright Joe Orton and his troubled partner.

It focuses on Joe Orton's (Gary Oldman) toxic pairing with Kenneth Halliwell (Alfred Molina) - how they met in their teens and how it ended in bitter bloodshed. The pair both want to be writers, but when Orton achieves roaring success with his plays Loot and What The Butler Saw, it drives Halliwell to jealous rage - and tragedy isn't far around the corner...

Frears captures the dreariness of mid-1960s London perfectly, Oldman and Molina light up the screen and Vanessa Redgrave's turn as Orton's agent is a highlight.

Introduced with a live performance by artist Tom Marshman, who will embody Kenneth Williams, inspired by archive footage from 1982 of Williams interviewed about his friendship with the playwright.

Tom Marshman is a Bristol based artists and founder of Beacons, Icons and Dykons, which is a playful ode to gay and queer cinema featuring performances, talks and surprises inspired by queer heroes and heroines in celluloid and beyond. Tom is also a resident artist Watershed's Pervasive Media Studio.

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