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Funeral Games
Book by Orton, Joe
- GenresPlays
96 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1970
2 people are currently reading
10 people want to read
About the author
Joe Orton
46 books87 followersJohn Kingsley ("Joe") Orton was an English playwright. In a short but prolific career lasting from 1964 until his death in 1967, he shocked, outraged, and amused audiences with his scandalous black comedies. The adjective Ortonesque is now used to refer to something characterised by a dark but farcical cynicism.
Joe Orton began to write plays in the early 1960s. He wrote his only novel: posthumously published as Head to Toe, in 1959, and had his writing accepted soon afterward. In 1963 the BBC paid £65 for the radio play The Ruffian on the Stair, broadcast on 31 August 1964. It was substantially rewritten for the stage in 1966.
Orton had completed Entertaining Mr. Sloane by the time Ruffian was broadcast. The play premiered on 6 May 1964 directed by Michael Codron. Reviews ranged from praise to outrage. It lost money in its 3-week run, but critical praise from playwright Terence Rattigan, who invested £3,000 in it, ensured its survival. Sloane tied for first in the Variety Critics' Poll for "Best New Play" and Orton came second for "Most Promising Playwright." Within a year, Sloane was being performed in New York, Spain, Israel and Australia, as well as being made into a film and a television play.
Orton's next work was Loot, written between June and October 1964. The play is a wild parody of detective fiction, adding the blackest farce and jabs at established ideas on death, the police, religion, and justice. It underwent sweeping rewrites before it was judged fit for the West End. Codron had manoeuvred Orton into meeting his colleague Kenneth Williams in August 1964. Orton reworked Loot with Williams in mind for Truscott. His other inspiration for the role was DS Harold Challenor. The play opened to scathing reviews. Loot moved to the West End in November 1966, raising Orton's confidence to new heights while he was in the middle of writing What the Butler Saw. Loot went on to win several awards and firmly established Orton's fame. He sold the film rights for £25,000 although he was certain it would flop. It did, but Orton, still on an absolute high, proceeded over the next ten months to revise The Ruffian on the Stair and The Erpingham Camp for the stage as a double called Crimes of Passion; wrote Funeral Games; wrote the screenplay Up Against It for the Beatles; and worked on What the Butler Saw.
The Good and Faithful Servant was a transitional work for Orton. A one-act television play completed by June 1964 but first broadcast by Associated-Rediffusion on 6 April 1967. The Erpingham Camp, Orton's take on The Bacchae, written through mid-1965 and offered to Rediffusion in October of that year, was broadcast on 27 June 1966 as the 'pride' segment in their series Seven Deadly Sins.
Orton wrote Funeral Games from July to November 1966 for a 1967 Rediffusion series, The Seven Deadly Virtues, It dealt with charity--especially Christian charity—in a confusion of adultery and murder. Rediffusion did not use the play; instead, it was made as one of the first productions of the new ITV company Yorkshire Television, and broadcast on 26 August 1968.
On 9 August 1967, Orton's lover Kenneth Halliwell bludgeoned 34-year-old Orton to death at his home in Islington, London, with a hammer and then committed suicide with an overdose of Nembutal tablets. Investigators determined that Halliwell died first, because Orton's body was still warm. Orton was cremated at the Golders Green Crematorium, his coffin brought into the chapel to The Beatles song "A Day in the Life". Harold Pinter read the eulogy saying "He was a bloody marvellous writer."
In his hometown, Leicester, a new pedestrian concourse outside the Curve theatre's main entrance is named "Orton Square." John Lahr wrote a biography of Orton entitled Prick Up Your Ears in 1978. A 1987 film adaptation directed by Stephen Frears starred Gary Oldman as Orton and Alfred Molina as Halliwell. Alan Bennett wrote the screenplay.
Joe Orton began to write plays in the early 1960s. He wrote his only novel: posthumously published as Head to Toe, in 1959, and had his writing accepted soon afterward. In 1963 the BBC paid £65 for the radio play The Ruffian on the Stair, broadcast on 31 August 1964. It was substantially rewritten for the stage in 1966.
Orton had completed Entertaining Mr. Sloane by the time Ruffian was broadcast. The play premiered on 6 May 1964 directed by Michael Codron. Reviews ranged from praise to outrage. It lost money in its 3-week run, but critical praise from playwright Terence Rattigan, who invested £3,000 in it, ensured its survival. Sloane tied for first in the Variety Critics' Poll for "Best New Play" and Orton came second for "Most Promising Playwright." Within a year, Sloane was being performed in New York, Spain, Israel and Australia, as well as being made into a film and a television play.
Orton's next work was Loot, written between June and October 1964. The play is a wild parody of detective fiction, adding the blackest farce and jabs at established ideas on death, the police, religion, and justice. It underwent sweeping rewrites before it was judged fit for the West End. Codron had manoeuvred Orton into meeting his colleague Kenneth Williams in August 1964. Orton reworked Loot with Williams in mind for Truscott. His other inspiration for the role was DS Harold Challenor. The play opened to scathing reviews. Loot moved to the West End in November 1966, raising Orton's confidence to new heights while he was in the middle of writing What the Butler Saw. Loot went on to win several awards and firmly established Orton's fame. He sold the film rights for £25,000 although he was certain it would flop. It did, but Orton, still on an absolute high, proceeded over the next ten months to revise The Ruffian on the Stair and The Erpingham Camp for the stage as a double called Crimes of Passion; wrote Funeral Games; wrote the screenplay Up Against It for the Beatles; and worked on What the Butler Saw.
The Good and Faithful Servant was a transitional work for Orton. A one-act television play completed by June 1964 but first broadcast by Associated-Rediffusion on 6 April 1967. The Erpingham Camp, Orton's take on The Bacchae, written through mid-1965 and offered to Rediffusion in October of that year, was broadcast on 27 June 1966 as the 'pride' segment in their series Seven Deadly Sins.
Orton wrote Funeral Games from July to November 1966 for a 1967 Rediffusion series, The Seven Deadly Virtues, It dealt with charity--especially Christian charity—in a confusion of adultery and murder. Rediffusion did not use the play; instead, it was made as one of the first productions of the new ITV company Yorkshire Television, and broadcast on 26 August 1968.
On 9 August 1967, Orton's lover Kenneth Halliwell bludgeoned 34-year-old Orton to death at his home in Islington, London, with a hammer and then committed suicide with an overdose of Nembutal tablets. Investigators determined that Halliwell died first, because Orton's body was still warm. Orton was cremated at the Golders Green Crematorium, his coffin brought into the chapel to The Beatles song "A Day in the Life". Harold Pinter read the eulogy saying "He was a bloody marvellous writer."
In his hometown, Leicester, a new pedestrian concourse outside the Curve theatre's main entrance is named "Orton Square." John Lahr wrote a biography of Orton entitled Prick Up Your Ears in 1978. A 1987 film adaptation directed by Stephen Frears starred Gary Oldman as Orton and Alfred Molina as Halliwell. Alan Bennett wrote the screenplay.
Ratings & Reviews
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Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews
February 26, 2019
Classic Orton but nowhere near his best.
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October 21, 2022Read for Queer Lit course
February 21, 2025
What I now know as Orton's gift for ridiculous farce and bizarre dialogue dialled up to new heights; sort of Loot at warp-speed; short, punchy, and very funny.
November 19, 2025
Not my favorite of Orton’s. Humorous concept, but went on too long with little payoff.
April 26, 2010
Funeral Games is a lightweight, very funny noir comedy about the usual Joe Orton subjects: murder, extramarital sex and body parts. With a small cast and no visual gags, it works on stage, as a television play or as something to read. There is nothing particularly subtle about the comedy and it is funnier for being simple.
Where could I get a human head? Even Harrods wouldn’t accept the order.I have noticed that existing reviews emphasise Funeral Games as a satire against the church. It is true that the two main characters are a defrocked Roman Catholic priest and the leader of one of these generic cults that make it up as they go along, and there is an assumption that anybody connected to organised religion is some kind of a huckster, but most of the audience at its premier in 1966 probably took that as a given.
M. It was my intention to represent – in a symbolic fashion – the Christian Church.
T. A bird of prey carrying an olive branch. You’ve put the matter in a nutshell.
March 16, 2015
Funeral Games
Funeral Games was a play performed after Orton’s murder, and was part of a series written for television in which viewers were supposed to guess the deadly virtue before the end of the play. The play revolves a con artist named Pringle. He hires a tough, Caulfield, to investigate whether his wife Tess is having an affair with an ex-priest named McCorquodale. In the course of investigation, we discover that McCorquodale has killed his wife and disposed of her in his basement. Pringle wants to kill Tess and she seeks refuge with the killer, McCorquodale. Everyone, as is typical of Orton plays, is despicable. As if to remove all doubt, Orton actually states through the words of McCorquodale, “It was my intent – in symbolic fashion – to represent the Christian Church.”
See my other reviews here!
Funeral Games was a play performed after Orton’s murder, and was part of a series written for television in which viewers were supposed to guess the deadly virtue before the end of the play. The play revolves a con artist named Pringle. He hires a tough, Caulfield, to investigate whether his wife Tess is having an affair with an ex-priest named McCorquodale. In the course of investigation, we discover that McCorquodale has killed his wife and disposed of her in his basement. Pringle wants to kill Tess and she seeks refuge with the killer, McCorquodale. Everyone, as is typical of Orton plays, is despicable. As if to remove all doubt, Orton actually states through the words of McCorquodale, “It was my intent – in symbolic fashion – to represent the Christian Church.”
See my other reviews here!
August 5, 2021
'Unless you kill your wife she'll accuse you of not being her murderer.' A fair one-act farce. Makes for good light reading but would certainly (as with all farce) be much better performed. Still, it's no Loot.
February 17, 2022
Outrageous, ridiculous, funny, entertaining.
Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews