Prick Up Your Ears - Matt Lucas at Comedy 17 Sep

Prick Up Your Ears - Matt Lucas at Comedy 17 Sep

Matt Lucas & Chris New are to star in Prick Up Your Ears , a new play by Simon Bent, inspired by the John Lahr biography and the diaries of Joe Orton, which opens at the Comedy Theatre on 30 Sep 2009, following previews from 17 Sep - booking to 6 Dec 2009.

It is directed by Daniel Kramer and produced by Sonia Friedman Productions, Kim Poster for Stanhope Productions and Lee Menzies.

Matt Lucas (Kenneth Halliwell), is best known with his comedy partner David Walliams in Tv's Little Britain. His West End credits include "Taboo" at the Venue in 2002. Chris New (Joe Orton), his London stage credits include "The Reporter" at the Cottesloe in 2007 & "Bent" at the Trafalgar Studios in 2006.

Casting for the third and final role of Mrs Corden, the neighbour, will be announced shortly.

A darkly funny and moving play imagines what really happened when, after years of creative collaboration, the door slammed shut and Kenneth was home alone. It tells the story behind the domestic life of Joe Orton and Kenneth Halliwell, holed up in a tiny flat in Islington, trading well-trodden insults and hilarious put-downs like any old married couple.

1962. Kenneth Halliwell and Joe Orton - RADA graduates, aspiring playwrights, and sometime lovers - plot their rightful place at the centre of London's literary scene whilst engaged in a secret crusade to 'improve' the local library books, all in the worst possible taste of course, and acting out their own versions of popular radio dramas... with an extra dash of innuendo. But after a short interlude at Her Majesty's pleasure, Joe is about to become the greatest, and most notorious comic playwright since Oscar Wilde, whilst Ken stays indoors re-decorating, reduced to sharing Joe's success with their neighbour, Mrs Corden, over tea and a slice of battenburg.

Prior to the West End opening, Prick Up Your Ears will play at Richmond Theatre from 26 - 29 August, the Quays Theatre, The Lowry, Salford from 31 August - 5 September and then the Theatre Royal Brighton from 7 - 12 September.


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