Last Updated on September 25, 2025
Joe Orton’s seductive cult classic
3.5 out of 5.0 starsEntertaining Mr Sloane is an interesting choice of play to revive, especially as the opening production of the new artistic director, Nadia Fall. It was a cult classic in the 1960s when sexual attitudes were somewhat different to our contemporary times, not only with regard to what could be put on the stage, but also regarding the off-stage behaviour of the playwright. So what does Entertaining Mr Sloane offer the audience in 2025? The play comes with trigger warnings aplenty – child death, rape, suicide, sexual content, violence, and themes of homophobia, sexism and racism, along with a brief mention of antisemitism. Orton based it on the Oedipus myth, touching on incest, murder, and blackmail for good measure. To turn these subjects into a farce with humour and wit takes some doing and is partly why Orton’s plays, which include Loot and What the Butler Saw, have remained popular. His own life – he was murdered by his lover, Keith Halliwell, at the age of 34 – is also part of the long-lasting fascination with his work.
The story is darkly comedic. Mr Sloane (Jordan Stephens makes his stage debut) is a man with a past who is looking for a roof over his head. Lonely Kate (Tamsin Outhwaite) takes him into her family home despite concerns voiced by her businessman brother Ed (Daniel Cerqueira) and their old Dada, called Kemp (Christopher Fairbank), who recognises him as the undiscovered murderer of his boss. Ed is more concerned about what the neighbours will think about Mr Sloane living with his sister, but soon he is competing with Kate for the sexual attention of Mr Sloane. The title of the play begs the question of who is entertaining whom in this game of desire and deceit.
The first act introduces the back stories of two of the characters. Kate had a baby in her teens with a close friend of her brother, Ed. It is hinted that this was a homoerotic relationship at least from Ed’s point of view, and once his friend has abandoned her, Ed punished his sister for ruining his friendship by removing the baby from her. She appears emotionally arrested at the point of trauma, and while she is now a woman in her early 40s, she comes across as not much older than Sloane, who is 20. At points, her character could have fit right into A Streetcar Named Desire. Sloane’s story is that he was orphaned at the age of eight and grew up in care. He uses whatever ploys he can to get ahead in life with a lot of charisma, charm, sexual favours and murderous violence when he is thwarted. He plays along with Kate’s desire to be his ‘mamma’ – she points out that he is of a similar age to her son – and while this is a source of humour, it is also the most poignant aspect of the play. Sloane, for all his bravado, is a lost boy, while Kate, for all her pretentiousness, is a mother who has lost her child. Kate is also a woman whose sexuality has not been explored – she says that at 15, ‘I was more familiar with Africa than with my own body’ and she makes up for lost time in seducing Sloane. While Kate revels in her sexual awakening, she makes the same mistake as she did in her teens, and falls pregnant with a man who will abandon her.
Brother Ed has his sexuality more firmly under wraps and is able to use his financial power to get Sloane to embody his fantasies – he has had success in business and no longer lives a working-class life as do his sister and father. He employs Sloane as his chauffeur, dressing him up in a white t-shirt and leathers. Excellent work here by the costume department (Peter McKintosh).
While female sexuality and sex outside of marriage, not to mention gay relationships, were all groundbreaking subjects for the stage in the 1960s, that is no longer the case today so the play does not shock. It does amuse because Orton is a very witty writer and knows his way around a farce. The first act rollicks along with lots of laughs and double entendres, with all four actors putting in a strong performance.
After an interval, the humour turns dark. It begins with a strong scene of Sloane in a nightclub with effective use of strobe lighting (Richard Howell) and movement (James Cousins). Music and sound are excellent under the direction of TIngying Dong, who seems to be involved in a myriad of productions in London. This scene introduces a more threatening Sloane as he explores his own fluid sexuality and continues to manipulate the siblings. The play considers questions of power in sexual relationships and within families. The siblings are so engrossed with projecting their fantasies on Sloane that they overlook whatever is inconvenient to acknowledge. They are clearly both starved of love and project their emotional and sexual needs onto Sloane, who is a willing chameleon and will play whatever role provides him with a sense of security without curtailing his freedom. Only Dada has the measure of Sloane, and like the old king, must be killed off for speaking the truth and holding firm in his commitment to ideas of justice. Sloane has no principles, and for the siblings, principles and abiding by the law are only useful in theory but are easily cast off when they get in the way of their libidinous and emotional desires.
Played in the round, the usual problems with this form of staging arose with the backs of actors facing sections of the audience at important moments. Orton sets Entertaining Mr Sloane in a house built alongside a rubbish dump, and designer Peter McKintosh has created a stunning set over which hangs a myriad of abandoned household objects, including a spinning wheel, an old-fashioned pram and a sewing mannequin. It is like an aerial house clearance. The stage is surrounded in turn by further detritus, a metaphorical moat, the rubbish kept at bay at first before the flimsy edifice of the family’s life comes crashing down.
It is worth seeing the production of Entertaining Mr Sloane for Outhwaite’s wonderful performance as Kate, skipping between needy child, playing ‘mamma’, and acting the seductress. By the end of the play, she finds her voice, refusing to be bullied by two threatening men. Using a bit of blackmail, she turns the tables on Sloane and finally stands up to her brother, striking a compromise with him. Sloane will live to rue the day he stumbled into their lives.
Cerqueira puts in a convincing performance of sexually repressed, middle-aged Ed, while Stephens made a strong stage debut and is both charming and comedic in the first act, but lacked sufficient menace, which was needed in the second and third acts. Fairbank was notable in his role as the ageing dada who fears being abandoned in a care home.
Director Fall writes in her introductory programme notes that Entertaining Mr Sloane is important to contemporary audiences partly because of the threat of fascism rearing its head and humanity’s amorality and dog-eat-dog nature. She chose this play as a cathartic scream in the face of human cruelty and selfishness. The play left me pondering whether outdated jokes based on misogyny and racism make for a play I want to see in 2025. Sadly, the line ‘send them home’ referring to ‘foreigners’ is growing in usage in our times. Hopefully, attitudes to women have evolved further, although perhaps I live in an echo chamber. While the play was well acted, with fine sets, sound, and costumes, it ultimately showed its age. Decrying amorality in our age is an important task, but I’m not convinced that Entertaining Mr Sloane is the most suitable vehicle.
Entertaining Mr Sloane runs at Young Vic until 8 November 2025
Young Vic,
66 The Cut
Bankside
London
SE1 8LZ
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