Born John Orton on New Year’s Day in 1933, Joe Orton would become one of Britain’s best-known playwrights, renowned for his scandalous black comedies, including Entertaining Mr Sloane, Loot, Funeral Games and What the Butler Saw. Orton’s theatrical career, and life, was cut short in August 1967 when he was murdered by his long-term partner Kenneth Halliwell. Halliwell bludgeoned Orton to death before taking his own life. After he began finding success as a playwright, Orton even wrote letters of complaint about his own work while writing in character as Mrs Welthorpe. The film Prick Up Your Ears, based on John Lahr’s biography of the same name, was later made about the lives of Orton and Halliwell.