Fred and Madge - Joe Orton

Two plays by Joe Orton, written before his breakthrough with Entertaining Mr Sloane.

Fred and Madge, written in 1959 when he was 26, is Orton's very first play - and itshines with Orton's extraordinary way with one-liners and with dialogue that reeks of hilarious sexual and social innuendo.

The Visitors, written in 1961, is the last play Orton wrote before his breakthrough.A thoroughly convincing exercise in slice-of-life realism set in a hospital where the dying Kemp is visited by his middle-aged daughter, while the nurses spend more time on in-fighting than on patient care.