While I have been an admirer of Park Theatre for some time and was aware of Joe Orton what really got me to see Loot was a chance encounter with Julie at a Sparks concert and Julie comes from Leicester, as did Orton. A convenient date was agreed and I bought the tickets, A18-20 in the middle of the front row, for a reasonable £26.5.
Apart from the promise of a 'dark comedy" I had little idea of what to expect. I had heard a couple of Orton short pieces on the radio recently and while they had some light touches I would be stretching a point if I said that I found them funny.
Loot was funny. Very funny. Laugh out loud funny.
Without giving too much away I can admit that it featured a dead woman, a nurse whose seven husbands all died quickly, a bank robbery and a policeman determined to solve several crimes all related to the few people in the room. Loot was a farce and a bloody good one too.
Trying to hide dead bodies is good farcical fare but there was more to Loot than just being a farce. The dialogue delivered clever funny lines at such a quick rate that it was hard to digest them all. Without the farcical elements of the plot it would still have been a funny play. A favourite, almost picked at random from the many, was when the coffin was being taken from the room the nurse put a copy of the Ten Commandments on it saying of the deceased, "She was a big fan, of some of them".
Some deep themes were covered too. There was a lot of religion, especially Catholicism, some politics and plenty of ethics. It was not a light play despite the heaps of comedy.
I found Loot to be hilarious from unusual beginning to unexpected end.
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