When the promising young playwright Joe Orton was murdered by his lover Kenneth Halliwell, in 1967, he was only 34 years old. Eleven years later, in 1978, came John Lahr’s acclaimed biography of Orton, Prick Up Your Ears. A distinguished American drama critic, Lahr was also given access to Orton’s journals, correspondence, and interviews, from which he created a charged and gritty script for a play, Diary of a Somebody, first aired in 1988. Now, in the West End, Nico Rao Pimparé has directed a punchy five-star revival. —Elena Clavarino

Tickets start at £22.50