Top acting stars Michael Elphick and Letitia Dean are to star at the Cliffs Pavilion, Southend in Joe Orton's outrageous comedy Loot.

Following a Chichester season and a West End run, both of which received rave reviews, Loot - one of the funniest plays of the '60s - comes to the seaside theatre for a week's run from April 5.

The notorious life and brutal nature of his death have overshadowed playwright Joe Orton's achievements as a writer.

Having struggled as an actor in the '50s, then as a writer of fiction collaborating with his friend and lover - and finally his murderer - Kenneth Halliwell, Orton was well placed to write plays that captured the spirit of the Swinging Sixties.

Loot, his second full-length play, is a hilarious comic drama in which two likely lads, Hal and Denis, make off with the swag from a bank robbery.

Hotly pursued by Inspector Truscott - written for Kenneth Williams, and played in this latest production by Michael Elphick - they hide the cash in the most unlikely of places, and encounter the seductive but deadly nurse Fay, Letitia Dean.

Loot, packed with brilliant one-liners and hilarious situations, opens at the Cliffs Pavilion, Station Road, Southend on April 5. Ring 01702 351135 to book.

Looks like a clue - Letitia Dean and Michael Elphick in Loot, in Southend for a week next month

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