The brilliant thing about this whole structure is the way the banalities of life are turned into rhyming ditties and entries in the diary which are so wonderful to read. Most people's diaries would be quite boring I suspect, but Brian's life is just so fraught with calamity and misunderstanding that the banal becomes interesting, even though it's not dramatic. He just ploughs on hoping for the best.

You feel three generations of gay liberation (and catch a glimpse of a fourth, linked to race) in Nico Rao Pimparé's revival of John Lahr's play, Diary Of A Somebody. She is working on something that “fills and dominates my soul”. But, as with all the things that matter to Laura profoundly, she doesn’t say what this Great Project is, either because it would be dangerous for her to do so, because she is a spy or a bombmaker; or because “it” is so obvious to her, so much a part of her, that “it” must be on a par with her existence. Staged for the first time in 35 years, Diary of a Somebody is a deep dive into the mind of one of the most witty, rebellious, and acclaimed artists of his generation. Introducing George Kemp (Bridgerton, Netflix; Call My Agent, Netflix; The Trial of Christine Keeler, BBC) as notorious artist and playwright Joe Orton, Diary of a Somebody will see Toby Osmond (Game of Thrones, HBO; Henry VIII and His Six Wives, BBC; Dead Souls, Monkhead Theatre) take to the stage as his mentor and partner, the actor and writer Kenneth Halliwell. George Kemp plays Joe Orton, Diary of a Somebody

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Of the supporting cast, Jemma Churchill is most adept at chopping and changing roles. Churchill gets to personify Mrs Edna Welthorpe, a fictional letter writing character created by Orton. Churchill also has the honour of delivering one of the funniest lines of the whole play, one which received a solid minute of sustained laughter from the audience. It's all well-trodden ground these days, but it still hurts knowing what fate awaits Joe, so full of life, and Ken, so trapped in his own neurosis, unable to arrest its descent into psychosis. But, as alluded to above, it's not all quite the same as it was. It’s January 1st and Brian Bilston’s life needs to change. His ex-wife has taken up with a new man, a motivational speaker and marketing guru to boot; he seems to constantly disappoint his long-suffering son; and at work he is drowning in a sea of spreadsheets and management jargon.

Occasionally, I’d peer inside one of the boxes. But I always felt slightly appalled. The books marked a time when Dido was well. They emphasised that she might be dying. They were hateful. One of the funniest novels in years . . . It also has genuine heart - and scores of poems so witty and accomplished that, in the real world, their author would surely be as famous as, well . . . I predict that Brian Bilston will soon be * Reader's Digest * It says a great deal for the diarist that she managed to keep me reading. She remained, throughout the guided tour she gave me of her mind, honest, funny, outlandish and respectable. She writes long letters to 'E' and gets terse, pompous replies: 'E said I am a weakling' LifeLikeTheatre brings the Orton Diaries to the stage at Rialto Theatre, Brighton and attempts to explore the final months of Orton’s life at the height of the swinging sixties. The play centres around the exciting and salacious life of Joe Orton and his relationship with Kennith Halliwell. Such a subject matter promises so much and despite stellar acting, the play suffers from some odd staging choices and disappointingly tame approach. The midlife answer to Adrian Mole? It's a big comparison to make, in comic novel terms, but Brian Bilston is worthy. In Diary of a Somebody, Brian makes a New Year's Resolution to write a poem a day for a year. Hilarious results ensue, as well as the disappearance of a poetry (and love) rival. Laugh. Cry. Cringe -- Stella Magazine * Sunday Telegraph *

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He's also a typical man. Subtle doesn't work for him so his tentative friendship with Liz, a woman he (literally) dreams about, is a bit slow to get off the ground. Even when Liz quite obviously asks Brian something where her meaning is quite obvious, for instance, if he would like a nightcap, she gets a monologue with the reasons why he is unable to, or even told that he is watching reruns of A Touch of Frost on the TV that night!

Imagine a mash-up of John Cooper Clarke, Ed Reardon’s Week and James Joyce, and you’re about halfway there. How do I laugh at thee? Let me count the ways . . . If you like sub-Carry On puns, clever parodies of famous poems and Wittgensteinian meditations on language, you'll love it * Mail on Sunday * At his monthly poetry club he has developed a crush on fellow cat-lover Liz and a pointed dislike of Toby Salt, a bumptious litterateur whose first collection, This Bridge No Hands Shall Cleave, has proved an unfathomable success. So when Salt mysteriously vanishes, Brian comes under suspicion, not least from Mrs McNulty, his spiritualist neighbour and fan of Countdown (“She claims that amidst the vowels and consonants there are hidden messages from ‘the other side’. I don’t know whether she means BBC Two or Channel 5”). And what exactly has Brian been up to in his new writer’s shed, apart from the usual business of not writing?She was exactly as I had come to picture her: tall, slightly stooped, her face “round as the moon”, and with lots of hair. She wore spectacles and looked bemused not just by me, but by everything beyond her front step. There are the events of 1966, detailed in Joe Orton's diaries on which the play based, Lahr catching Orton's delight in transgression and his longtime boyfriend, Kenneth Halliwell's, plunge into depression. There's the 1989 original production of the play, when many of Orton's transgressions had been legalised, but prevailing attitudes were probably best summed up by Tom Robinson's line in 'Glad To Be Gay' - "The buggers are legal now, what more are they after?" And then 2022, when the moral panics that the letters LGBT excite in the media have tilted firmly to the T. with LGB largely met with a shrug of the shoulders if they warrant any reaction at all. Jemma Churchill who played Orton’s agent, Peggy Ramsey, and voiced Edna Wellthorpe (Mrs), occasionally stole the show, and certainly had the biggest laugh of the night with the line ‘my vagina has come up the size of a football’. The rest of the chorus followed with some impressive character work, especially Jamie Zubairi as Kenneth Williams and Sorcha Kennedy as Miss Boynes. The direction, by Nico Rao Pimparé was well thought through, although some scene changes felt a little laboured. So, to borrow from Jorge Luis Borges, the exact same words sound very differently to different ears - this both diminishes and extends the appeal of the play. Nobody must find out about this unique gem, because I'm giving it to EVERYONE, and I want to appear clever and discerning.' - Dawn French

The other four members of the cast play a cavalcade of figures, famous and unknown, who breezed through Orton's life at the height of his short-lived fame. Jamie Zubairi delivers a deliciously camp Kenneth Williams, instantly recognised by many in the house a third of a century after his death. Jemma Churchill is terribly good reading the letters Joe wrote to the BBC to complain about... Orton of course! Sorcha Kennedy gives us a neighbour wholly unconcerned about Joe and Ken's lifestyle and fame - just preoccupied with the usual working class Londoner's worries. Ryan Rajah Mal nails the closeted, but also doomed. Brian Epstein, the Beatles' manager. At one point in the early 1960s, in her 20s, she was living in poverty in London. Like every young, healthy, intelligent, imaginative, gifted person, she was full of wild and impossible plans. The handwriting in these volumes is urgent. Some entries are thousands of words long. She is trying to capture every second of her day. Occasionally, pressed on by her excitement, her handwriting wobbles and she resorts to underscoring: “injure, atmosphere, doesn’t believe me!! so hungry! I’ll kill them!” I recall my father, a huge admirer of Kenneth Williams, reading and enjoying his diaries (not as explicit as Joe's of course) but remarking that the Tangier trips with Orton and Halliwell for "Beach, Boys and Bum" as Joe characteristically styles it, was "wrong". We've learned a lot more about 'White Privilege' in the 30 years since that conversation and I think I would agree with that conclusion more readily now. Toby Osmond told QX, “This fantastic play, based on the diary of Joe Orton is as exciting as the stars it stars. Orton’s tragically short life was a roller coaster – a big part of which was Halliwell, who I have the privilege to play. I cannot wait to tread the boards again – my first time since Game of Thrones finished – and inhabit this doomed lover and killer.”The first is that my 148 diaries represent only about one eighth of the total number of volumes Laura wrote. It turns out that I don’t have a single complete year after 1962, and that almost all the 70s, the second half of both the 60s and 80s, and most of the 90s are missing. Estimating from the gaps in my collection, the correct total number of books is closer to 1,000, or 40m words. Laura was the most prolific diarist in known history. One must live dangerously, take risks, or one otherwise is in an ordinary metier all along… I now see I can do it. IT MUST BE DONE!!” Seven Dials Playhouse opened in February 2022 with Steve directed by Andrew Keates. It seeks to provide opportunities for people to collaborate on bold, creative and high quality work while providing journeys of enlightenment and entertainment for artists and audiences alike.