Prick Up Your Ears – 1987 | 111mins | Drama | Colour

Plot Synopsis

Another glowering, emotionally committed performance from Gary Oldman as the brilliant, acerbic gay playwright Joe Orton. The biopic was written by Alan Bennett and is based on John Lahr’s biography which concentrates on Orton’s turbulent homosexual relationship with lover, early collaborator and eventual murderer Kenneth Halliwell.

The film focuses on Joe’s rise from a working class hero to cult figure of London’s Swinging 60s, and his fraught 16-year association with writer Kenneth Halliwell (Alfred Molina) who grew increasingly embittered as Orton’s star rose. Orton arrived in London to attend the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art (RADA) where he meets Halliwell, the two soon move in together in a flat in North London and unsuccessfully attempt to write a few novels. After each spends six months in prison for defacing library books, literary agent Peggy (Vanessa Redgrave) takes notice of Orton’s writing and guides him to success while Halliwell is left behind. The flamboyant and frequently violent homosexual relationship between Orton and Halliwell ended suddenly when Orton suffered half a dozen hammer blows to the head by his long-time lover – Halliwell then committed suicide. A cruel and hard tragi-comedy, not unlike Orton’s writing.