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More than 5000 entries on the history, culture and life of Britain (published in 1993 by Macmillan, now out of print)
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Joe Orton
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(1933–67) The great anarchist of modern British theatre, both in his life and his plays. From his time at RADA in the 1950s he lived with Kenneth Halliwell, seven years his senior. Together they aspired to become writers; together they went to jail in 1962 for defacing public library books with mocking images and comments. Prison seems to have focused Orton's anarchic talent. He emerged to write a series of brilliantly outrageous farces, brimming with epigrams and using the shock of laughter to seduce audiences into accepting the unacceptable.
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His first full-length play, Entertaining Mr Sloane (1964) was followed by Loot (1965) and What the Butler Saw (produced posthumously in 1969). Unlike their earlier work together, these plays did not have Halliwell as co-author. Jealous of Orton's success (and of his promiscuity), Halliwell killed him in 1967 by battering his head with a hammer; he then took an overdose of sleeping pills.
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