Highly original, genuinely funny and clever, with a gentle humanity in between the lines. Brian Bilston should be Poet Laureate -- John O'Farrell 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 *

Perhaps the diaries had belonged to a Trinity don, I thought, and got depressed. I slid the boxes down the corridor to my study and shoved them under a table. I think it was because they looked so interesting that I didn’t want to read them. I was deep at work on a biography and didn’t have time to get interested in anything new. Set almost exclusively in the room shared by the two men, the design centred around the partners’ shared single bed. Designed by Valentine Gigandet, the set, though clearly on a tight budget, worked well against the whirlwind of action, with faux classical statues staring blankly at the audience. The walls were covered with Halliwell’s decadent and unprosperous collages, being at once contemporary and a little creepy. Our eponymous hero, Brian Bilston, starts the year with the intention of writing a poem a day. Whilst that goes by the wayside some days, we are still treated to many poems of the very clever and mostly rhyming variety that I love. The poems form the first part of the entries in Brian's diary over the course of a year of numerous ups and downs for him.

A play about a genius playwright, and his unhinged partner:

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. She writes long letters to “E”, and gets terse, pompous replies: “E said I am a weakling. E said there is no place for them in life, they ought to be hung up”; “E said she’s glad she’s not my parents.” 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

Book Genre: British Literature, Comedy, Contemporary, Diary, European Literature, Fiction, Humor, Modern, Novels, Poetry Brian Bilston has decided to write a poem every day for a year while he tries to repair his ever-desperate life. His ex-wife has taken up with a new man, a marketing guru and motivational speaker who seems to be disturbingly influencing his son, Dylan. Meanwhile Dylan’s football team keeps being beaten 0–11, as he stands disconsolately on the wing waiting vainly to receive the ball. At work Brian is drowning in a sea of spreadsheets and is becoming increasingly confused by the complexities of modern communication and management jargon. So poetry will be his salvation. But can Brian’s poetry save him from Toby Salt, his arch nemesis in the Poetry Group and potential rival suitor to Brian’s new poetic inspiration, Liz? Worst of all Toby has announced that boutique artisan publishing house Shooting from the Hip will be publishing his first collection, titled This Bridge No Hands Shall Cleft, in the autumn. And when he goes missing Brian is inevitably the number one suspect. Part tender love story, part murder mystery, part coruscating description of a wasted life, and interspersed with some of the funniest poems about the mundane and the profound, Diary of a Somebody is the most original novel you will read this year. Diary of a Somebody by Brian Bilston – eBook DetailsI have long envied artists who draw and sketch each day; who are able to transform ordinary visual experience into art – I imagine it to be a joy. 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. 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. After 1990, everything succumbs to television. She disappears as a human being in these last years of her life, and reappears as cataloguer of Michael Barrymore gossip. She rages against “those who are stuffed with sleep”. Unless I arranged the diaries, I couldn’t know how everything tied together.’ Photograph: Pal Hansen/The Guardian

There are fascinating possibilities in this situation. I’d get it down on paper if I were you” said Joe Orton once, the young playwright followed his own advice, and for a period of his short life kept a diary. American theatre critic John Lahr dramatized the diaries in 1989, and the result is Diary of a Somebody which has now opened as the second production at the new Seven Dials Playhouse in London. Toby Osmond comments, 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. 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. 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. 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.

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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. Flora would listen patiently, wait a few more months, then make her point again: had I read all the diaries? No. Had I read above a third of them? No. So, I hadn’t studied them properly. Unless I arranged the books chronologically, I couldn’t know how everything tied together, and therefore could not make a proper study of the contents. So many of my unconscious assumptions about Laura had been false. How many others were?

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. 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 Brian's resolution is to write a poem every day; poetry will be his salvation. But there is an obstacle to his happiness in the form of Toby Salt, his arch nemesis in the Poetry Group and rival suitor to Liz, Brian’s new poetic inspiration. When Toby goes missing, Brian is the number one suspect. PDF / EPUB File Name: Diary_of_a_Somebody_-_Brian_Bilston.pdf, Diary_of_a_Somebody_-_Brian_Bilston.epub 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.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. Brian Bilston has decided to write a poem every day for a year while he tries to repair his ever-desperate life. His ex-wife has taken up with a new man, a marketing guru and motivational speaker who seems to be disturbingly influencing his son, Dylan. Meanwhile Dylan’s football team keeps being beaten 0–11, as he stands disconsolately on the wing waiting vainly to receive the ball. At work Brian is drowning in a sea of spreadsheets and is becoming increasingly confused by the complexities of modern communication and management jargon. So poetry will be his salvation. But can Brian’s poetry save him from Toby Salt, his arch nemesis in the Poetry Group and potential rival suitor to Brian’s new poetic inspiration, Liz? Worst of all Toby has announced that boutique artisan publishing house Shooting from the Hip will be publishing his first collection, titled This Bridge No Hands Shall Cleft, in the autumn. And when he goes missing Brian is inevitably the number one suspect. That’s nothing compared with the next surprise. Elsa is 50 years older than Laura. I had to leap up from my bed and dab the walls to sop up my splattered tea after I read it. When they first met and Laura fell in love, Laura was 14 and Elsa 64. There was nothing lurid about Laura and Elsa’s love. Intense and erotic, it was never consummated beyond a chaste kiss, yet it was enough to command Laura’s life. When “E” died in 1979, aged 90, Laura was 40. She lost her closest friend, her mentor, her decision-maker, her personification of artistry and, for the next 20 years, herself.