The Visa Affair: Joe Orton's play on his Kafkaesque struggle to secure a US visa to debut on BBC Radio 3

The 20-page story follows Orton’s visit to the American Embassy in Grosvenor Square in 1965

Joe Orton enjoyed a short but prolific career (Getty)

A previously unpublished story by Joe Orton, about his struggle to secure a US visa to see one of his plays open on Broadway, will be turned into a radio play by crime writer Jake Arnott.

Leonie Orton-Barnett, the playwright’s younger sister who oversees his literary estate, suggested Mr Arnott adapt The Visa Affair, which will be broadcast on BBC Radio 3. It is part of a programme of new commissions to celebrate the 70th anniversary of The Third Programme, the forerunner of Radio 3, which broadcast Orton’s first play The Ruffian on the Stair.

The 20-page story follows Orton’s Kafkaesque visit to the American Embassy in Grosvenor Square in 1965 for a visa so that he could attend the Broadway opening of Entertaining Mr Sloane,

Mr Arnott, whose novels include The Long Firm, intends to add more material from letters, personal testimony and archive documents to flesh out the story. It will be his first radio play and a “huge honour”, he said.