Loot

Joe Orton’s outrageous black comedy Loot follows the fortunes of two young thieves, Hal and Dennis. Dennis is a hearse driver for an undertaker. They have robbed the bank next door to the funeral parlour and have returned to Hal’s home to hide out with the loot. Hal’s mother has just died and the pair put the money in her coffin, hiding the body elsewhere in the house. With the arrival of Inspector Truscott, who is in the hot pursuit of the thieves but swears to all that he’s from the Water Board, Fay, a Florence Nightingale with the bedside manner of a plotting gold-digger, and the recently widowed Mr. McLeavy who is just trying to mourn his late wife, the thickened plot turns topsy-turvy. Playing with all the conventions of popular farce, Orton creates a world gone mad and examines in detail English attitudes at mid-century. Elise Dewsberry directs.

There are additional Sunday matinees May 2 & 16 at 2pm.