Queer classic Prick Up Your Ears is returning to… | Little White Lies

Trailers

Queer clas­sic Prick Up Your Ears is return­ing to cinemas

08 Jun 2017

Words by Stephen Puddicombe

Gary Old­man deliv­ers a sen­sa­tion­al turn in this biopic of the late play­wright Joe Orton.

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.

Collage of actors from film "Prick Up Your Ears", with bold red neon text title and film details.
Two illustrated book covers depicting a smiling Black man wearing a hat and tie, with a city skyline in the background

LWLies 107: The Sin­ners issue – Out now!

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