Exploring the wit, work and world of Joe Orton through his own words, and the testimony of those who knew him and worked with him.

Joe Orton Laid Bare

Clancy Sigal ventured everywhere and accomplished everything a bold spirit possibly can in the turbulent course of a mere lifetime: street-smart city kid, precinct worker, union organizer, soldier, UCLA graduate, Hollywood agent, target of McCarthyism, European emigre, Fleet Street journalist, novelist, staunch leftist disdainful of party lines, enemy of cant of any kind, psychedelic journeyer, skeptical devotee of psychiatrist R. D. Laing, National Book Award nominee, and screenwriter of Frida and other films. An eloquent radical who shook up things in every milieu he encountered, nothing he ever wrote was predictable, except for the compassion, dark humor and demand for social justice always at the core. Hinged on extensive interviews with Sigal and with associates, this documentary offers an intriguing alternative view of recent US and UK history, peppered with provocative insights by the most savvy and candid of trans-Atlantic travelers. Interviewees include critic John Lahr, actor Oliver Cotton, editor Tim Radford, screenwriter Janice Tidwell, and many others.