This volume contains every play written by Joe Orton, who emerged in the 1960s as the most talented comic playwright in recent English history. Orton, who was murdered in 1967 at the age of thirty-four, was considered the direct successor to Wilde, Shaw, and Coward.Includes:The Ruffian on the StairEntertaining Mr. SloaneThe Good and Faithful ServantLootThe Erpingham CampFuneral GamesWhat the Butler Saw

The Complete Plays

Literature & Fiction

Joe Orton

Dramas & Plays

Grove Press, 1978

The Orton Diaries

Biographies & Memoirs

METHUEN

I suppose I'm a believer in Original Sin. People are profoundly bad but irresistibly funny' Joe Orton. This volume contains everything that Orton wrote for the theatre, radio and television from his first play in 1964, The Ruffian on the Stair, up to his violent death in 1967 at the age of 34. It includes his major successes: Entertaining Mr Sloane, which 'made more blood boil that any other British play in the last ten years' (The Times); Loot, 'a Freudian nightmare', which sports with superstitions about death - as well as life; his farce masterpiece, What the Butler Saw; The Erpingham Camp, his version of The Bacchae, set in a Butlin's holiday resort; together with his television plays, Funeral Games and The Good and Faithful Servant. The volume includes a revealing introduction by John Lahr, Orton's official biographer."He is the Oscar Wilde of Welfare State gentility" (Observer)

Complete Plays

GROVE PRESS

"Joe Orton's last play, What the Butler Saw, will live to be accepted as a comedy classic of English literature" (Sunday Telegraph) The chase is on in this breakneck comedy of licensed insanity, from the moment when Dr Prentice, a psychoanalyst interviewing a prospective secretary, instructs her to undress. The plot of What the Butler Saw contains enough twists and turns, mishaps and changes of fortune, coincidences and lunatic logic to furnish three or four conventional comedies. But however the six characters in search of a plot lose the thread of the action - their wits or their clothes - their verbal self-possession never deserts them. Hailed as a modern comedy every bit as good as Wilde's The Importance of Being Earnest, Orton's play is regularly produced, read and studied. What the Butler Saw was Orton's final play."He is the Oscar Wilde of Welfare State gentility" (Observer)

What the Butler Saw

Methuen Drama

Entertaining Mr Sloane was first staged in 1964. Despite its success in performance, and being hailed by Sir Terence Rattigan as 'the best first play' he'd seen in 'thirty odd years', it was not until the London production of Loot in 1966 - less than a year before Joe Orton's untimely death - that theatre audiences and critics began to more fully appreciate the originality of Orton's elegant, alarming and hilarious writing. Introduced by John Lahr, the author of Orton's biography Prick up Your Ears, Entertaining Mr Sloane is now established as an essential part of the repertoire of the modern theatre.

Entertaining Mr. Sloane

The Orton diaries: Including the correspondence of Edna Welthorpe and others

Edited by John Lahr

Methuen Publishing, Ltd.

Two novels marking the beginning and the end of the seven-year-long writing partnership of Joe Orton and Kenneth Halliwell. "Lord Cucumber" is a camp pastiche of a Mills and Boon romance, and "The Boy Hairdresser" tells of the tortured relationship of two rootless young men.

The Boy Hairdresser

Contemporary

Loot

"Joe Orton's last play, What the Butler Saw, will live to be accepted as a comedy classic of English literature" (Sunday Telegraph) The chase is on in this breakneck comedy of licensed insanity, from the moment when Dr Prentice, a psychoanalyst interviewing a prospective secretary, instructs her to undress. The plot of What the Butler Saw contains enough twists and turns, mishaps and changes of fortune, coincidences and lunatic logic to furnish three or four conventional comedies. But however the six characters in search of a plot lose the thread of the action - their wits or their clothes - their verbal self-possession never deserts them. Hailed as a modern comedy every bit as good as Wilde's The Importance of Being Earnest, Orton's play is regularly produced, read and studied. What the Butler Saw was Orton's final play."He is the Oscar Wilde of Welfare State gentility" (Observer)

Samuel. French

No damage to book. DJ has very slight edgeware to corners and ends of spine. Seven Plays, 1997.

Joe Orton, The Complete Plays: The Ruffian on the Stair, Entertaining Mr. Sloan, The Good and Faithful Servant, Loot, The Erpingham Camp, Funeral Games, What the Butler Saw

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Joe Orton. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Books by Joe Orton

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Joe Orton. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

The Complete Plays

The Orton Diaries

Complete Plays

What the Butler Saw

Entertaining Mr. Sloane

The Orton diaries: Including the correspondence of Edna Welthorpe and others

The Boy Hairdresser

Loot

What the Butler Saw

Joe Orton, The Complete Plays: The Ruffian on the Stair, Entertaining Mr. Sloan, The Good and Faithful Servant, Loot, The Erpingham Camp, Funeral Games, What the Butler Saw