Loot - Context

Kenneth and Orton have experienced 3 months of jail during their relationship, after they had been sentenced for vandalising the covers of public library books. During this 3-month period, he has been overcome with this feeling of disrespect for the police force and in the play "Loot", especially; he shows this feeling and uses Trustcott to undermine the police authorities.

Joe Orton was influenced by other plays, before he introduced his contemporary works. One of these plays might be "Look back in Anger" by John Osborne. This play marked the start of a new genre on the British stage in the late 1950s. It was the first play where some views and opinions, which before had been considered inappropriate, had now been expressed to a large public. It's lines are for the first time very similar to the every-day spoken language, and the bluntness of the speeches would have been quite shocking for the society at the time. For example, Jimmy, one of the main characters, says to Alison (his wife) "If only something- something could happen to you, and wake you out of your beauty sleep! If you could have a child, and it would die."

This play was written in the sixties, a period of time where people wanted to liberate society from the "post-war tranquillity" mood that had settled in the UK after WW2. The sixties were a time of change. New music bands were influencing the new era, but not only that: the first man on the moon, new "daring" movie stars such of Marilyn Monroe, and the women's liberation movement starting to expand, with the publishing of "The feminine Mystique" by Betty Friedan.