Planned Leicester Statue of Joe Orton Axed

A statue to commemorate murdered playwright Joe Orton has been scrapped. The Joe Orton Statue Appeal reached its target in 2019, having raised over £115,000 for the project.

According to The Times, the Joe Orton statue committee emailed those who had submitted proposals for the statue, blaming the "Covid-19 pandemic and its economic aftermath, and changing public attitudes to statues - illustrated by the toppling of the statue of Edward Colston in Bristol and protests against the statue of Mahatma Gandhi in Leicester".

However, it is also believed that Orton's predilection for teenage boys also contributed to the project's demise. Fears for the project were first raised in a podcast about Orton, Penknife's Crimes of Passion, which was released last week and tells the story of his murder by Kenneth Halliwell.

Orton's youngest sister and the administrator of his estate, Leonie Orton Barnett, told the podcast: "That's the main theme running through the Leicester city council's thoughts, that we can't have a statue of this man who they think - or assume - was a paedophile.".

Orton was born in Leicester in 1933 and murdered in 1967 by his lover, Kenneth Halliwell, at the age of 34. The memorial was due to be erected in his home town, in Orton Square. It would have been the first statue in Britain to commemorate an openly gay man.

Contributors to the project included Sir Ian McKellen, Dame Sheila Hancock, Stephen Fry and Alison Steadman, and Sir Matthew Bourne.

Three days ago (26 August), the appeal's website posted an update: "Apologies for the long silence. As you may have inferred from the delays, this project has encountered problems but we are working with project partners to find the best way forward and hope to update you more fully soon. Thank you for your patience."

Read the full article in The Times here.

Image Credit: The Joe Orton Statue Appeal