Cats: Your Actual Gay Art

A collage created by Kenneth Halliwell is up for auction this month and the town hall’s archives team is desperate to buy it.

Halliwell was an artist and the partner of Joe Orton, the writer with whom he infamously defaced Islington Public Library books in 1962.

The pair were jailed for six months for the act of “guerilla artwork”, which was motivated by the “endless shelves of rubbish” they found in public libraries.

They also lived together in Noel Road for seven years before Halliwell killed Orton and then committed suicide in 1967.

It is thought Orton had some input into the Cat Collage, a 1966 piece made out of paper, card, magazine print, book plates and varnish.

Now the council wants to add it to the Orton/Halliwell collection in Islington Museum and will be hoping their bid wins on September 22.

Mark Aston, local history manager, said the auctioneers expect it to fetch between £3,000 and £5,000 but an independent valuation found it would go for closer to £20,000.

He told the Gazette: “The appeal goes out to anyone that would like to contribute to help us bid confidently for the piece and to bring the collage home to Islington where it was produced nearly 50 years ago.”

Islington journalist and author Neil McKenna has already backed the campaign. He told the Gazette: “Joe Orton and Kenneth Halliwell are one of the most iconic gay couples of the late 20th century and they lived and worked here. It is very, very important it comes back to Islington where we already have a very good collection of their material.

“People often forget this is a very artistic, creative borough with a proud literary history.”

Donations can be made via PayPal to mark.aston@islington.gov.uk. Cash and cheques are also welcome. Call Mark on 020 7527 7988 for payment information.

Islington Gazette.

Did I ever tell you I've been to the flat?

Prick Up Your Ears: Oh Joe

John Lahr’s 1978 biography of the playwright Joe Orton may seem an unlikely choice for a book to give you hope. After all, Orton’s success was not only a long time coming (a decade of abject failure was crowned by a six-month spell in prison for defacing library books), but when it did finally arrive in 1964 (with the West End production of Entertaining Mr Sloane) it lasted only until 9 August 1967. It was brought to a bloody and premature end by his long-term lover, Kenneth Halliwell, who bludgeoned Orton to death with a hammer before taking his own life. Orton was only 34 years old.

Yet, it is these early years of struggle and anonymity that make Orton’s life story such a fascinating and, yes, inspirational read... 

Guardian Books.

Alan Bennett's Prick Up Your Ears (sorry about the Spanish subtitles) is probably Fagburn's favourite 'gay film'.

For a great gay reclamation of Joe, see Simon Shepherd's Because We're Queers.

Oh, did I ever tell you I've been to the flat...

Kenneth Williams: Infamy! Infamy!

Personal letters and diaries belonging to Carry On star Kenneth Williams have been acquired by the British Library.

The collection includes 43 diaries and approximately 2,000 letters spanning the actor's career, from the age of 18 until his death in 1988.

It was gifted to the library by his friend and neighbour Paul Richardson.

The 1950 edition of the diary, as well as a letter from the archive, will be on display in the Library's permanent exhibition space later this month.

It is believed that roughly 85% of the archive is unpublished material never before seen by researchers, offering unique insights into the life of a gay man before the decriminalisation of homosexuality in 1968.

Williams' was an assiduous diary keeper for more than 40 years, and was known to tease his contemporaries with the words: 'You'll be in my diary!', but few have had the opportunity to read them.

"In the pages of the diaries, Williams is instantly recognisable as the acerbic and fastidious character well known to several generations but also, more surprisingly, is shown to be a reflective and poignant observer," said curator Kathryn Johnson.

"The diaries and letters also record the actor's experience of the dying days of the repertory theatre system and the growth of modern celebrity culture, something he seemed both to love and loathe," she continued...

BBC News.

Bona - and it's rather sweet that the British Library is round the corner from Mr Williams' former abode at 57 Marchmont Street (it's right opposite Gay's The Word bookshop, if you're passing).

What Fagburn would love to see next is the uncensored Joe Orton diaries...

PS A suitably depressing as fuck short PM item.

Update: Nice piece in the Telegraph.

Update 2: And true to form the Express just repeats what everyone else has written!

EastEnders: Funeral Games

An EastEnders sex scene involving secret gay couple Ben Mitchell and Paul Coker will not be investigated further by Ofcom, despite a huge uproar on social media.

The watchdog received 76 complaints after the episode was aired a few weeks ago.

In the scene, the characters, played by Harry Reid and Jonny Labey, kissed next to an open coffin and were later seen getting dressed.

Ofcom said it assessed the complaints but 'concluded they didn't raise issues warranting further investigation'.

Its decision continued: 'We found the scenes were justified in the context of a long-running plotline and sexual contact between the characters was implied rather than overt.

'Our rules don't discriminate between scenes involving opposite-sex and same-sex couples.' 

Twitter was awash with shocked comments from viewers criticising the storyline, branding it 'disgraceful and distasteful'.

'Having sex in a room with a dead body, oh #eastenders', one social media user wrote, while another posted, 'Well. Wasn't expecting to watch #Eastenders tonight and see a dead body in a coffin.. Thanks for that #horrible'.

A third fan raged, 'Catching up on #Eastenders - Did I really just see 2 blokes making out in a room with a dead woman laying in a coffin? #BBC do need saving!'

A BBC spokesman hit back at the claims at the time, saying: 'The millions of regular EastEnders fans who tune in each week know and expect dramatic storylines.

'We are always mindful of out time slot in which we are shown and the scenes in question were implied and not explicit.'

In the same episode Ben was arrested on suspicion of killing Lucy Beale in a dramatic police showdown.

Earlier in the evening, the sexually-confused teen, forgetting all about his girlfriend Abi Branning, was seen stripping off with hairdresser Paul in the heat of the moment in front of Mrs Birch's unwitting corpse.

Their romp was interrupted by Paul's grandparents listening at the door to see if he was still styling the body's hair.

'Best knock first. I wouldn't want to put him off his stroke,' Les Coker declared. 'I think he must be finishing off.' 

Daily Mail.

MEGALOLZ!

Mail readers were divided.

Said tinytum; 'soaps are supposed to reflect real life,,,who do you know who has done this,,,,i no longer watch any of them, its all drugs,,sex,,gay ness..etc,,,,sorry but most people do not live like that,,,,,,,,we have lost our way'

But adamb commented; 'Really? People got offended at this? What sad lives they must lead.'

PS All pictures as used by Mail Online.

Joe Orton: On Television

Morocco: Unbound

A British man flew home from Marrakech last week after being jailed for 'homosexual acts'. There was a time though when Morocco was renowned as a haven for gay Americans and Britons who fled restrictions in their own countries to take advantage of its relaxed atmosphere...

BBC News Magazine follow in the dusty footprints of Bowles, Burroughs, Ginsberg, Orton et al.

Although some think the writers were rebelling against a soulless, suburban McCarthyite America, [John] Hopkins says it was more straightforward. "They were after boys and drugs. That's what drew them. The Moroccans were charming, attractive, intelligent and tolerant. They had to put up with a lot from us."

So why did Morocco, an ostensibly devout Islamic country, allow homosexuality to thrive? The author Barnaby Rogerson says it is a society that is full of paradoxes.

"It is... a place where all the four different cornerstones of culture: Berber-African, Mediterranean, Arabic or Islamic, share an absolute belief in the abundant sexuality of all men and women, who are charged with a sort of personal volcano of 'fitna', which threatens family, society and state with sexually derived chaos at any time," he says. The word fitna, he suggests, "means something like 'charm, allure, enchantment, temptation, dissent, unrest, riot, rebellion' or all of these at the same time."

Joe Orton, pictured in 1967, with a helpful young tour-guide.

That intro is so silly though. 

Morocco is still a haven for gay American and British tourists.

The arrests of Ray Cole and his often forgotten friend Jamal Wald Nass for 'homosexual acts' last week were exceptional.

That is why they - or rather the British Cole's - were so newsworthy. 

It is ridiculous to suggest men are routinely arrested just for having gay sex, or that there is some homophobic clampdown going on. 

Can you tell me the last time a British or American gay tourist was arrested?

Joe Orton: Baby Lotion

You’d be sorely mistaken if you presumed that because something is written in private, it represents the man as he truly is. All writing is a performance, whether the audience is large or a lone reader. Letters are written for the purpose of being read by a recipient: a reflection of how the poet wishes to be understood by that single reader and, as such, prone to flattery, exaggeration and lies.

Historians and biographers should be equally mistrusting of diaries. Some diaries are a place where writers wallow in sentiment or kick around ugly ideas. Others are written for eventual publication and so are about as trustworthy as a Lib Dem manifesto. The diaries of Joe Orton, the playwright, for example, are a self-serving (and frankly boring) series of sexual adventures that cast him as an adolescent Priapus. In reality, people who met him saw a thirtysomething, giggling oddity who rubbed baby lotion into his face to make it shine.

Tim Stanley in the Sunday Telegraph's review of Philip Larkin: Life, Love And Art.

Timmy is such a posh silly-billy he is literally incapable of judging either Larkin or Orton. 

And I don't think Joe regularly put baby lotion on his face, and if he did if was just a bit of zooshing up for the cameras.

A bit like Mr Stanley's heavily Photoshopped pic here. 

Joe Orton: Portrait

By John Hobbs - He has some works for sale.

PS Nothing of note today, but Independent Voices have published this adorable article about the gays by a 12 year-old. So cute!

Orton: The Musical

This can only be brilliant, surely?

Letter Of The Day: Edna Welthorpe (Mrs)?

I TOTALLY agree with the letter (TV's emphasis on gay themes is relentless Bristol Post January 23) highlighting the excessive attention given to gay/lesbian issues on TV programmes.

I'm quite sure the silent majority of the British public do not want to see this content on a nightly basis.

I'm proud to say I'm in the "No" camp on this matter.

It's about time the Government regulated the broadcasters more stringently.

Of course, this is unlikely to happen, as invariably when the issue raises its head; the politicians will fudge the issue to avoid losing the "Pink Vote".

The broadcasters themselves, striving to appear politically correct, will continue to appease the gay minority.

There are those who say these shows are only depicting everyday life as it is, but I don't buy into that. For myself, I hardly ever come across members of the gay community in my daily life.

The public deserve much more family oriented shows, such as "Strictly Come Dancing".

I may not be the lightest on my feet anymore, but watching others perform gives me no end of pleasure.

I very much doubt that George Ferguson will comment on this matter as those abominable red trousers he wears are obviously a blatant attempt to woo gay voters.

Name and address supplied

Bristol Post. 

Wonderful.

PS Pink News nicked this and ran it without realising it's a piss-take!

Kenneth Halliwell: Erasure

Kenneth Halliwell: lover, killer... artist?

He has always been known as playwright Joe Orton's lover – and killer. But, beyond his celebrated library book jokes, is it time we started taking Kenneth Halliwell seriously as an artist?

Good piece in The Guardian by Philip Hoare.
Ironically illustrated by a photo of Joe, not Ken.

PS Fagburn has been to their flat!
It's tiny.
You can see why Joe kept going out cottaging.
And how Ken ended up - quite literally - driving Joe up the wall.

Joe Orton: More Fucking

'Much more fucking and they'll be screaming hysterics in next to no time.'

Joe Orton quoted by John Lahr in The Guardian.

"It's a testament to Lahr's research that very little new information has come to light since Prick Up Your Ears was published in 1978: his remains the definitive account of Orton's life and death."

Really?
No missing pages from the diary, then?
Lahr's homophobic subtext is exposed in this, Alex.

They wore each others' pants!!!

Joe Orton: Books Are A Load Of Crap

As crimes go it was not the most heinous of offences, but Islington council's principal law clerk, Sidney Porrett, made it his mission to nab the perpetrators.
"I had to catch these two monkeys," he said. "They were a couple of darlings, make no mistake."
The darlings in question were the playwright Joe Orton and his boyfriend – later murderer – Kenneth Halliwell, and the crimes were taking library books and returning them with comedy collages on the dustjackets.
After a fruitless investigation that involved undercover librarians, Porrett eventually caught the pair in an elaborate sting operation and they went down for six months each.
From Friday, the story of their crimes will be retold by the council, which is putting on display 40 of the 72 dustjackets that the pair defaced.

The Guardian.

I'm pretty sure you only had to ask someone who worked at Islington Library nicely to see them before...

Joe Orton: Apropos Of Nothing

'After about five minutes or so a youngish man with a hairstyle which was way out in 1958, short, college-boy came up and said, "...I'm Brian Epstein's personal assistant."
'It crossed my mind to wonder why the English have never got around to finding a perfectly respectable word for "boyfriend".'

Joe Orton, diary entry January 24th 1967.
From the introduction to Up Against It.
Dunno exactly why but something made me think about this PA/boyfriend continuum quotation today.
Moral: Don't think the closet will save you - it'll only fuck you over in the end.

Alan Bennett: Libraries Gave Us Power

"I have always been happy in libraries, though without ever being entirely at ease there. A scene that seems to crop up regularly in plays that I have written has a character, often a young man, standing in front of a bookcase feeling baffled. He – and occasionally she – is overwhelmed by the amount of stuff that has been written and the ground to be covered. “All these books. I’ll never catch up,” wails the young Joe Orton in the film script of Prick Up Your Ears, and in The Old Country another young man reacts more dramatically, by hurling half the books to the floor. In Me, I’m Afraid of Virginia Woolf someone else gives vent to their frustration with literature by drawing breasts on a photograph of Virginia Woolf and kitting out EM Forster with a big cigar. Orton notoriously defaced library books before starting to write books himself. This resentment, which was, I suppose, somewhere mine, had to do with feeling shut out. A library, I used to feel, was like a cocktail party with everybody standing with their back to me; I could not find a way in..."
"It’s hard not to think that like other Tory policies privatising the libraries has been lying dormant for 15 years, just waiting for a convenient crisis to smuggle it through. Libraries are, after all, as another think tank clown opined a few weeks ago, ‘a valuable retail outlet’."

Alan Bennett writing on his lifelong love-affair with libraries in The London Review Of Books.
Mr Bennett has been supporting the campaign Save Kensal Rise Library.

• Alan Bennett reads his The Shielding Of Mrs Forbes on Radio 4's Book At Bedtime next week.