Oh that glorious voice! His wonderful sneer when he talks about prison. I’ve carried a torch for him since I saw “Prick Up Your Ears” as a teenager, and then devoured his fantastic diary. Such a loss...!
Thank you for bringing Joe to you tube Hendryk - I wrote my degree dissertation on him. Was lucky enough to neet Kenneth Cranham(who was in first production of Loot) many years ago and he spoke so warmly of Joe.
Wow...that was so interesting...I think that RADA changed Joe's accent....His voice seemed to be pitched somewhere between middle and upper middle class. Though he must have begun with a Leicester accent...Madame Lambert would have been proud...
Hard to equate that elocution trained voice with the impressions I have of the true Joe, I believe he began to let it drop. Sloane is my favourite film, although radically cut down from the original script. Joe is one of the very few writers I directly relate to outside of popular music. Thanks for your post.
I no longer own a copy of Joe's diary, the published version of which ends on August 1st. That said, I know that the Royal Court production of Crimes of Passion, which Joe refers to in past tense, went up in June 1967. Joe also refers to What the Butler Saw as if he's completed it. I _think_ he completed it in July. So a broadcast date of August 2nd sounds reasonable. Like most Orton fans, I wonder what he might have achieved had Kenneth not murdered him. There's little doubt that his writing would have continued to improve, but the cool, Swinging Sixties hipness he enjoyed would have ebbed. I imagine him enjoying a Pinter-like status.
£100k for the film rights to Loot is close to £2m today. This guy was really in the ascendant. Heartbreaking that he'd be dead so soon after this interview. RIP.
One could imagine him around still , v happy in retirement & creating more work that would of surprised himself , I really feel the loss when his sisters talks of him as he had his life ahead of him , I wish he had spent his money renting somewhere to have a break from Kenneth again
It will, sadly, remain forever unknown how Joe Orton's career would have progressed. The limited clips of him being interviewed show a lively and open mind I think. My bet is that he would have become a national treasure in the mould of Alan Bennett and Grayson Perry.
Extremely sad to think that he was at the end of his life. Kenneth would have been unraveling in Noel Road, and his diary pages at this time were removed by some party. The last week must have been unspeakably bad.
Yes ;( It has always miffed me who "removed" them. Especially in hindsight, i might sound outspoken, BUT I feel in SOME ways for Kenneth more than Joe towards the end. The anguish he must have been in. But obviously sad to see the end they BOTH had. How it got to that.
@Charles Rae I know! He once told someone he was " from the gutter", and added something along the lines of " don't you forget it, because I won't". Well, apparently he did, when it suited him. Hypocritical? Hmm.
giovanna , very unfair to say that! He had elocution lessons to get into RADA where the purging of his native East Midlands accent continued. In fairness, the Leicestershire accent is horrible - probably the most unpleasant regional accent in Britain, so he was well rid of it!
@@67Parsifal I guess beauty is in the ear of the beholder, because I quite like the Leicestershire accent. Leonie speaks with it and it's charming. However, I do not like the uptight formal speech that Joe uses here. To me he sounds stuffy and affected.
giovanna , I first heard this interview in 1986, when it was broadcast on a BBC Radio 4 programme on Joe Orton. I got a shock, because he didn’t sound as I’d expected him to sound but when you think about it, it all makes sense.. When Joe graduated from RADA in the early fifties, all British actors spoke with Received Pronunciation, To aspire to any kind of career you had to speak the ‘Queen’s English’, or you’d be relegated to comical character parts. It was only in the early 60s (by which time, Joe had ceased acting) that regional accents became acceptable in British acting.
I love him too. I think he had to learn RP to further his ambition to be an actor (he got a scholarship to RADA as he states in this interview). Be in no doubt; his upbringing in Leicester was decidedly working class; I think he has every right to be proud how far he had come from that unpromising start. It's how things were then.
@@Robutube1 Yes and you can tell he still had a little of his original accent- he actually sounds a bit like his sister. Oh he was lovely. Such a talent!
Is the missing pages the explanation of the murder or was there such a terrible row during joe typing his diary that Kenneth ripped it out of the typewriter & lashed out so violently
More are watch documentaries, the more I feel may have happened eg Peter said he took them to his Dr’s due to there withdrawals yet Peter said from cannabis , well in Morocco u don’t just get hash u get heroin & u don’t with draw from hashish yet heroin withdrawals after Morocco & are horrendous, it just struck me could this of been removed from the diaries due to ppl seeing it as shocking issue & could of made the death court hearings even more entangled - just a theory
I wonder who said Joe's _humour_ would date badly. I also wonder when they said it...and if they said it. To be honest, I don't believe anyone said it. Joe's humour is just as strong today. It's the subject matter and targets of his satire that have dated.
Why don’t you believe anyone would say such a thing? There are people on the internet who believe the Beatles were ordinary, that George Best was overrated and that the world is flat.
He sounds dreadfully affected. I think he must have been having fun putting on this plummy accent. Whoever said that there was never just one Joe Orton was right :)
I have been a fan of his work for 40 plus years, but this is the first time I have heard his voice. I wish I hadn’t now. His voice is horribly contrived. I have a better understanding of Ken now as Joe comes across as deeply egotistical and pretentious. Thank you very much for posting this.
guess it’s the RADA training and generally trying to assimilate into that more upper class British arts sphere. bit odd to say you understand his murderer better because you find his public speaking voice ‘contrived’ and ‘pretentious’- especially since halliwell himself grew up rather well off, and orton very much did not.
@@angelinaconte3304That would be like dismissing Joe as a pederast and beyond that we must never seek any understanding of him. The point was in the context of Joe’s ability to ‘discard’ what he felt was ‘necessary’. There is no justification inherent in saying one has a better understanding of a personality type and the subsequent dynamics that might create within a relationship.
Not a trace of the evidently not-very- bright Leicester lad brought up by working-class parents in a council house. Like Thatcher, he paid for elocution to change his accent. Always highly suspicious of such individuals. He comes across as priggish, superior and highly dislikable.
Oh that glorious voice! His wonderful sneer when he talks about prison. I’ve carried a torch for him since I saw “Prick Up Your Ears” as a teenager, and then devoured his fantastic diary. Such a loss...!
Iam a homosexual and I don't want my head smash in by a nutter
Thank you for bringing Joe to you tube Hendryk - I wrote my degree dissertation on him. Was lucky enough to neet Kenneth Cranham(who was in first production of Loot) many years ago and he spoke so warmly of Joe.
"When i'm not writing anymore, which may be in a short while" eerily prophetic!
Thanks for the interview. Fascinating to hear Joe's voice discussing his growing career
Wow...that was so interesting...I think that RADA changed Joe's accent....His voice seemed to be pitched somewhere between middle and upper middle class. Though he must have begun with a Leicester accent...Madame Lambert would have been proud...
how very sad that we lost his great talent so early in his life. indeed just one week after this interview.
It make s your blood run cold...
Hard to equate that elocution trained voice with the impressions I have of the true Joe, I believe he began to let it drop. Sloane is my favourite film, although radically cut down from the original script. Joe is one of the very few writers I directly relate to outside of popular music. Thanks for your post.
Great interview. If it was recorded on 2/8/67/then he was dead one week later
I no longer own a copy of Joe's diary, the published version of which ends on August 1st. That said, I know that the Royal Court production of Crimes of Passion, which Joe refers to in past tense, went up in June 1967.
Joe also refers to What the Butler Saw as if he's completed it. I _think_ he completed it in July. So a broadcast date of August 2nd sounds reasonable.
Like most Orton fans, I wonder what he might have achieved had Kenneth not murdered him. There's little doubt that his writing would have continued to improve, but the cool, Swinging Sixties hipness he enjoyed would have ebbed. I imagine him enjoying a Pinter-like status.
£100k for the film rights to Loot is close to £2m today. This guy was really in the ascendant. Heartbreaking that he'd be dead so soon after this interview. RIP.
One could imagine him around still , v happy in retirement & creating more work that would of surprised himself , I really feel the loss when his sisters talks of him as he had his life ahead of him , I wish he had spent his money renting somewhere to have a break from Kenneth again
Thank you for very interesting video
It will, sadly, remain forever unknown how Joe Orton's career would have progressed. The limited clips of him being interviewed show a lively and open mind I think. My bet is that he would have become a national treasure in the mould of Alan Bennett and Grayson Perry.
Well I think Joe may have eventually come unstuck through his sexual proclivities, much in the way Jimmy Saville and Gary Glitter have done...
Extremely sad to think that he was at the end of his life. Kenneth would have been unraveling in Noel Road, and his diary pages at this time were removed by some party. The last week must have been unspeakably bad.
Yes ;( It has always miffed me who "removed" them. Especially in hindsight, i might sound outspoken, BUT I feel in SOME ways for Kenneth more than Joe towards the end. The anguish he must have been in. But obviously sad to see the end they BOTH had. How it got to that.
When you say the last week must have been unspeakably bad, in what way? I mean, what was happening?
Always a bit of a shock to hear his rp pronunciation. So much associated with the establishment that he despised so much. Highly ironic!
@Charles Rae I know! He once told someone he was " from the gutter", and added something along the lines of " don't you forget it, because I won't". Well, apparently he did, when it suited him. Hypocritical? Hmm.
giovanna , very unfair to say that! He had elocution lessons to get into RADA where the purging of his native East Midlands accent continued. In fairness, the Leicestershire accent is horrible - probably the most unpleasant regional accent in Britain, so he was well rid of it!
@@67Parsifal I guess beauty is in the ear of the beholder, because I quite like the Leicestershire accent. Leonie speaks with it and it's charming. However, I do not like the uptight formal speech that Joe uses here. To me he sounds stuffy and affected.
giovanna , I first heard this interview in 1986, when it was broadcast on a BBC Radio 4 programme on Joe Orton. I got a shock, because he didn’t sound as I’d expected him to sound but when you think about it, it all makes sense.. When Joe graduated from RADA in the early fifties, all British actors spoke with Received Pronunciation, To aspire to any kind of career you had to speak the ‘Queen’s English’, or you’d be relegated to comical character parts. It was only in the early 60s (by which time, Joe had ceased acting) that regional accents became acceptable in British acting.
Love Joe , but always surprised how he was so proud that he was from the gutter, his words, but he sounds like he went to Eton .
I love him too. I think he had to learn RP to further his ambition to be an actor (he got a scholarship to RADA as he states in this interview). Be in no doubt; his upbringing in Leicester was decidedly working class; I think he has every right to be proud how far he had come from that unpromising start. It's how things were then.
@@Robutube1 Yes and you can tell he still had a little of his original accent- he actually sounds a bit like his sister. Oh he was lovely. Such a talent!
Is the missing pages the explanation of the murder or was there such a terrible row during joe typing his diary that Kenneth ripped it out of the typewriter & lashed out so violently
More are watch documentaries, the more I feel may have happened eg Peter said he took them to his Dr’s due to there withdrawals yet Peter said from cannabis , well in Morocco u don’t just get hash u get heroin & u don’t with draw from hashish yet heroin withdrawals after Morocco & are horrendous, it just struck me could this of been removed from the diaries due to ppl seeing it as shocking issue & could of made the death court hearings even more entangled - just a theory
Somebody said that Joe Orton's humour would date badly and that Noel Coward's plays would survive. Strange.
I wonder who said Joe's _humour_ would date badly. I also wonder when they said it...and if they said it. To be honest, I don't believe anyone said it.
Joe's humour is just as strong today. It's the subject matter and targets of his satire that have dated.
Why don’t you believe anyone would say such a thing? There are people on the internet who believe the Beatles were ordinary, that George Best was overrated and that the world is flat.
His humour is now as dated as Coward’s.
Murdered just a week after this, on Aug 9th 1967....
Where did he get the weird accent?
He probably had an arsenal of accents to be ready for any occasion, I think. He loved slipping in and out of identities.
He had a week to live.
He sounds dreadfully affected. I think he must have been having fun putting on this plummy accent. Whoever said that there was never just one Joe Orton was right :)
That's what he got from RADA. Ye Olde Worlde RP.
He had a great voice, thanks to elocution and RADA. East Midlands accents are horrible, anyway: if you’ve got one, you’d do well to lose it!
I have been a fan of his work for 40 plus years, but this is the first time I have heard his voice. I wish I hadn’t now. His voice is horribly contrived. I have a better understanding of Ken now as Joe comes across as deeply egotistical and pretentious. Thank you very much for posting this.
guess it’s the RADA training and generally trying to assimilate into that more upper class British arts sphere. bit odd to say you understand his murderer better because you find his public speaking voice ‘contrived’ and ‘pretentious’- especially since halliwell himself grew up rather well off, and orton very much did not.
@@angelinaconte3304That would be like dismissing Joe as a pederast and beyond that we must never seek any understanding of him. The point was in the context of Joe’s ability to ‘discard’ what he felt was ‘necessary’. There is no justification inherent in saying one has a better understanding of a personality type and the subsequent dynamics that might create within a relationship.
@edwardferry824-What a ridiculous comment.
Perhaps that explains his horrific demise. Based on this very evident affectation and condescension, I wouldn’t have given him the time of day.
@@angelinaconte3304Before quitting his working-class roots in Leicester, he paid for private elocution lessons - just like Margaret Thatcher.
Not a trace of the evidently not-very- bright Leicester lad brought up by working-class parents in a council house. Like Thatcher, he paid for elocution to change his accent. Always highly suspicious of such individuals. He comes across as priggish, superior and highly dislikable.