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Beginning in a modest Islington flat in 1962, Prick Up Your Ears centres on the lives of unknown playwright Joe Orton and his partner, the up-and-coming actor Kenneth Halliwell. Two bright young RADA graduates, the pair spend their time charting their course to the centre of the London arts scene and comically defacing books from the local library. After a short stint in prison, Orton is finally poised to become the most celebrated and important playwright in Britain since Oscar Wilde. Halliwell's success never materialises though, and he's left to discuss Orton's celebrity with the couple's neighbour Mrs Corden.

Embittered by being left behind by the London literary movement, Halliwell turns to sniping at Orton with well-trodden insults. The growing gulf between the pair gradually becomes unbearable as their cramped London flat degenerates into a battle ground of pithy and venomous quips.

By turns funny, poignant, moving and violent, Prick Up Your Ears is tipped to be one of the West End's most successful comedies when it opens there in the autumn.

PLEASE NOTE: Matt Lucas will no longer appear in Prick Up Your Ears.