Olly goes to Hollywood
In 1967, I was given the role of Noah Claypole in the film of Oliver!.
What luck. Five days’ filming at £50 a day – and, at the same time, playing Hal in Joe Orton’s Loot at the Criterion Theatre, which the previous year had won the Evening Standard Best Play award. I was 22 at the time.
Jane Asher brought Paul McCartney to see Loot. He said most plays gave him a pain in the arse but he loved this one and wanted it to last longer.
Meetings were even arranged between Joe and Brian Epstein, the Beatles’ manager, to discuss Joe writing the script for their next film.
The late ’60s were like a surfboard that everyone, young and old, was riding, waiting to be enthralled by what
