Uploaded June 2020 | Updated September 2026, 1 week ago

---

by Dr Emma Parker, University of Leicester and Leonie Orton, Author

2019 LGBT+ History Month Lecture

Introduction by Dr Gareth Longstaff, Deputy Head of Media, Culture, Heritage and Chair of Rainbow@ncl

Joe Orton’s What the Butler Saw (1969) features no gay characters, yet homosexuality is the absent centre of his final play. In the first half of this talk which marked LGBT+ History Month, Emma Parker explored how Orton’s queer black comedy subverts sexual double standards, mocks heteronormativity and challenged discourses of deviance. In the second half, Leonie Orton read from her memoir, I Had it In Me (2016), in which she explored the origins of her brother’s outrageous humour, in his home town of Leicester and in the Orton family.

-----------------------------------------------------------

Thank you for watching.

Subscribe to our YouTube channel: youtube.com/c/INSIGHTSPublicLecturesNCL
Follow INSIGHTS Public Lectures on Twitter: twitter.com/InsightsNCL
Visit the INSIGHTS Public Lectures Website: ncl.ac.uk/events/public-lectures