Nadia Fall launches her first season as Young Vic Artistic Director with Joe Orton’s 1964 cult classic Entertaining Mr Sloane – a three-act play that is ‘brimming with manipulation, seduction, and a devilish wit’.
When lonely Kath (Tamzin Outhwaite) offers the mysterious Mr Sloane (Jordan Stephens) a room to rent in the family home, her businessman brother Ed (Daniel Cerqueira) does not approve. But soon, he becomes equally taken with the charismatic young Sloane. Only their old Dada (Christopher Fairbank) remains wary, convinced that he recognises this stranger. What begins as a convenient living arrangement spirals into a dangerous game of desire and deceit.
Kath clings to Mr Sloane, an orphan whose parents died when he was young. She tells him that she had a child out of wedlock and was forced to give it up for adoption. It feels like she treats this as a second chance of being a mother to the son she never had “He hasn’t a mamma of his own. I’m to be his mamma.”. But does Mr Sloane want to be mothered? Perhaps not but ultimately helps her to fulfil her dream.
Entertaining Mr Sloane has had its fair share of revivals over the years with star casting from the likes of Barbara Windsor and Imelda Staunton (Kath) to Adam Ant, Alec Baldwin and Matthew Horne (Mr Sloane).
The set design for this production is simple but effective. In true Joe Orton style, there is just one setting – a living room, surrounded by cast iron objects to reflect that the house is next to a rubbish dump. Once the play begins, the items on stage float away to allow the action to take place in the round.
Tamzin Outhwaite is better than ever, really looking at home in the ‘housewife’ type roles she has been playing recently. Music star of 2010 hip-hop duo ‘Rizzle Kicks’ fame, Jordan Stephens, plays Mr Sloane nicely – an innocent sheep in search of a flock. Christopher Fairbank as Dada is old and creepy, scurrying around like a rat, whilst Daniel Cerqueira as Kath’s brother Ed doesn’t play the part quite as slimy as he perhaps could and it wasn’t always clear what his intentions were with Mr Sloane.
Joe Orton’s Entertaining Mr Sloane isn’t as shocking as it was when first written in the 1960’s but this is a nice production that is worth seeing for the great cast.
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