AN EVENING of subversive good fun is promised when the Company of Ten puts on Joe Orton’s multi-award-winning play Loot in the Abbey Theatre’s Studio.

A masterpiece of black farce, Loot follows the fortunes of two unscrupulous young thieves who have successfully robbed the bank next to a funeral parlour.

It leaves them with the dilemma of where will they hide the money and how will they keep Inspector Truscott off their trail. The Roman Catholic Church, social attitudes to death and the integrity of the police are all mercilessly satirised in the play.

Finding fame in his lifetime, Orton’s career as a playwright of extraordinary talent was tragically cut short when he was murdered by a jealous lover in 1967 at just 34 years of age.

But Orton’s reputation as a writer of rare comic wit, scathing satire and ghoulish fantasy lives on. A lampooner of British propriety, prudery and adherence to authority, his body of work is still well loved today and is undergoing something of a revival.

Director Tim Hoyle said: “I have been a big fan of Joe Orton’s writing for many years, and I am delighted that currently there seems to be a resurgence of interest in his work with his final play What The Butler Saw currently running in the West End, Entertaining Mr Sloane coming to The Curve in Leicester later in the year and one of his one-act plays, The Ruffian On The Stairs, recently recorded for radio broadcast. To this the Company of Ten adds this production of Loot.”

Loot runs at the Abbey Theatre from next Friday, June 15, until Saturday, June 23. To book tickets go to www.abbeytheatre.org.uk or alternatively call the box office on 01727 857861.