Fifty years after the death of its subject, Stephen Frears’ rollicking Joe Orton biopic is returning to cinemas. Prick Up Your Ears sees Gary Oldman star as the provocative playwright who went from working class Leicester lad to the toast of London’s swinging art scene in the 1960s.
Supported by Alfred Molina and Vanessa Redgrave, Oldman delivers outrageous one-liners and scandalous sexual barbs in a film that captures the giddy charm of a true English eccentric – who tragically suffered a sudden and violent death in 1967.
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Adapted by Alan Bennett from the biography by John Lahr, Prick Up Your Ears is a bold portrait of a young artist who was openly gay at a time when homosexuality was still being persecuted by the police.
The ITV Studios production is back in cinemas on 4 August as part of the BFI’s Gross Indecency season, a summer programme exploring the pioneering depictions of LGBT life in British film in the years immediately before and after the introduction of the Sexual Offences Act 1967.
