Just a stone’s throw from the bedsit where he lived in Noel Road in Islington, wrote his celebrated plays, and was murdered by his lover, Joe Orton’s first play, Fred and Madge, is being staged professionally for the first time ever.

Orton was one of the most pivotal playwrights of the 20th Century – penning the likes of Entertaining Mr Sloane, Loot and What the Butler Saw – but Fred and Madge, which he wrote in 1959, has never been seen until now, and it is going down a storm at The Hope Theatre.

“Orton must have been one of Islington’s most influential imports,“ says the play’s director, 24-year-old Mary Franklin, who was born in Islington herself and lived there until the age of four.

“The play was written the year he moved into Noel Road – in both senses it’s the start of his formation into the Joe Orton who became famous.“ Mary, co-founder and artistic director of Rough Haired Pointer theatre company and resident director of The Hope, was asked by the theatre’s founding director Adam Spreadbury-Maher to put on the previously undirected Fred and Madge. She jumped at the chance.

Fred and Madge tells the story of the normal unhappily married couple of the title who discover that they are inhabiting a play about themselves, which is full of sardonic wit and sexual innuendo. It is fascinating for lovers of Orton’s work as it provides a riveting and hilarious insight into the development of one of the most original minds of his day.

Joe came from a working-class family in Leicester and won a scholarship to RADA where he met his lover and lifelong companion Kenneth Halliwell. The pair lived together until 1967, when Halliwell murdered him and then killed himself. Orton’s public career lasted just a few years, but his influence can still be felt more than 40 years later.

“Lots of people in the audience so far have been die-hard Orton fans,“ says Mary, “so in a sense our toughest crowd, and I think they are loving it. It’s a whole new side of him for people to explore.

Mary believes Fred and Madge was way ahead of its time when Orton wrote it in 1959.

“The cast and I have been referencing much later films constantly in rehearsals, including the works of David Lynch, Michael Gondry and, perhaps most centrally, The Truman Show.

Orton is playing with form in this script more than he did later on and more than others around him were doing.

“It’s intensely theatrical, its constantly questioning its form and ripping away layers of perceived reality – Fred works as a stage manager and there’s a director who is desperately trying to keep the show on the road. I believe all theatre should wear its theatricality on its sleeve.“ Mary, a big Orton fan herself, learned as much about the playwright by putting on this production as she hopes the audience will from attending it.

“It also has this intense joy and playfulness,“ she says, “and it is ridiculously ambitious, which I love. What you can see from the text is a young playwright sharpening his teeth. He picks up ideas and just runs with them. You can tell he is having a really great time writing this piece.“

Fred and Madge is at The Hope Theatre, Upper Street, Islington until Saturday, October 18. Details: 020 7226 4443, thehopetheatre.com