Matt Lucas returns to West End stage

New play about Joe Orton

Matt Lucas is to star in a West End play about the life of controversial playwright Joe Orton.

He will play Kenneth Halliwell, Orton’s lover and murderer, opposite stage actor Chris New.

The play is based on a biography of the same name, written by American theatre critic John Lahr, as well as the playwright’s own diaries.

It will preview in a handful of venues, including the Richmond Theatre, before transferring to London’s Comedy Theatre on September 17, ahead of the official opening night on September 30.

Prick Up Your Ears is set in 1962, when Halliwell and Orton, fresh out of RADA, plot their assault on London’s literary and theatrical scene.

Orton went on to writerthe plays The Ruffian On The Stair, Entertaining Mr Sloane, Loot and What The Butler Saw, as well as several novels, but in 1967 Halliwell battered him to death in the Norht London flat there shared before taking his own life.

Aside from the Little Britain stage tour, Lucas’s last stage role was as Leigh Bowery in Taboo seven years ago.

Prick Up Your Ears is booking at the Comedy until December 6.

Published: 22 Jun 2009

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