ajhlovestheatre

ENTERTAINING MR SLOANE 

by Joe Orton

directed by Nadia Fall

The Young Vic, London – until 8 November 2025

running time: 2 hours 20 minutes including interval 

https://www.youngvic.org/whats-on/entertaining-mr-sloane

Joe Orton’s first full length play, Entertaining Mr Sloane, shocked critics and audiences when it premiered in 1964. Seeing it again in Nadia Fall’s revival staged in-the-round at the Young Vic, it remains uncomfortable viewing, albeit probably for slightly different reasons in 2025.

Sloane is a jet black comedy with a grim Pinter-esque edge, gleefully juxtaposing some pretty tawdry goings-on (a middle aged brother and sister compete for the affections of, and ultimately control of, the amoral young man who may also be a murderer) with a verbose script that mixes the mundane with the outrageous. It has moments of comic joy but more often the tone is dark and threatening. Fall’s productions leans more into the latter than the former. I’ve seen much funnier versions than this one, but the speedy, whiplash-inducing transitions between near-farce and domestic horror are nicely done.

It’s the misogyny that is hardest to swallow in this day and age. Women are repeatedly referred to as “tarts” (“what a cruel performance you’re giving” says Ed to his sister Kath as she pleads with Sloane, “like an old tart grinding to her climax”), and are viewed generally as, at best, inconveniences and at worst as figures to be discarded once used. Kath is depicted as needy, manipulative and bordering on simple-minded, only finding her agency at the very end of the play, and even then it’s sleazy and pragmatic. 

While it’s true that Ed and Sloane are no better, neither of them have the indignity of getting their false teeth slapped out of their heads, or get to endure anything like the horrible moment when Ed manhandles his sister in front of a mirror and verbally assassinates her looks. Fall adds some visual business to the end of the play for the moment when Kath and Ed exert ultimate control over the younger, compromised Sloane that redresses the balance but it feels like a kinky directorial embellishment.

So too does the decision to have Jordan Stephens’ Sloane writhing on the floor or posturing on the sidelines when the character is being discussed by the others. There’s also a striking, but completely unnecessary, sequence at the top of the second half that has a shirtless Sloane gyrating in a modern club setting to pounding dance music. It certainly alters the pace and feel of the show but as a way of connecting the late 1950s/early 1960s milieu of the play to the present day, it seems pretty ham-fisted.

Peter McKintosh’s set is a thing of authentic, macabre wonder, a sculptural, suspended extravaganza of black-painted paraphernalia that collectively makes up a life: there’s a baby carriage, multiple chairs, a bed frame, a laundry basket, a floor lamp, a coffin…. Further similar detritus surrounds the circular stage; it’s a proper eyeful, whimsical yet strangely disturbing, and gets nearer to Orton’s specification that Kath’s house is on the edge of a rubbish dump than any other set for this play that I’ve seen.

Tamzin Outhwaite is a terrific, brittle Kath. She’s initially endearing but slightly manic, and hints at a gnawing loneliness under all the mindless chatter. She first appears holding her apron as though it’s the baby she was never allowed to keep, and this informs our perception of this woman. When she gets upset, it’s pitiful to watch but tempered with a chilling ruthlessness that, one suspects, is equal to, if not greater than, that of her hypocritical, closeted brother. Outhwaite lets us see every change of mood and mind, every hurt, every mendacity; it’s a memorable performance, entirely without vanity, although physically the actress could hardly be more different from the disrespectful way Ed and Sloane describe her.

Daniel Cerqueira’s Ed is another superbly realised performance. Uptight and mean-spirited, he hints, at least initially, at a remaining warmth for the father (Christopher Fairbank, wonderfully dishevelled and suspicious) who hasn’t spoken to him since he catching him in flagrante delicto (presumably with a man) several years previously. Cerqueira doesn’t overplay Ed’s covert lust for Sloane but watching the mask of pompous propriety slip from time to time is delicious, and also there’s no attempt to shy away from the nastier aspects of the character.

Unfortunately, Jordan Stephens is the least successful member of the acting quartet. While there’s every indication that nothing that comes out of Sloane’s mouth is to be trusted, the one-note bellow with which Stephens delivers almost every line means that nothing rings true. Physically, it’s easy to see what Kath and Ed see in him, but there’s little sense of danger with this Sloane, and his desperation when cornered seems all surface. 

Despite a bland performance in the title role, the caustic elegance and wit of Orton’s language still reigns, and Entertaining Mr Sloane is frequently laugh-out-loud funny. Whether or not that justifies the melancholy grubbiness and sheer nastiness of what unfolds is something that each audience member will have to decide for themselves. Either way, a vintage play still retaining a degree of shock value sixty years after being first produced, is pretty remarkable.