Entertaining Mr Sloane: a welcome revival of Joe Orton’s black comedy

As lascivious landlady Kath in the revival of Joe Orton’s Entertaining Mr Sloane, Tamzin Outhwaite is the butt of some nasty “fat sow” jibes. In this respect, Outhwaite (who is the exact opposite) is miscast, but she sinks her teeth into the role with raucous relish.

False teeth, actually, which fly out at inopportune moments across the in-the-round stage. There’s no vanity in her performance, just ribald abandon, as middle-aged Kath sets about seducing young lodger Mr Sloane (Jordan Stephens) – wooing him with ham sarnies, drooling “You’ve a skin on you like a princess” and lifting up her negligee to douse herself with air freshener.

She’s a hilarious harridan with no hint of subtlety, but then Orton’s play is broadly comic and as outrageous as it was when it first premiered in 1964. Launching her tenure as the Young Vic’s Artistic Director, Nadia Fall doesn’t shy away from the play’s built-in misogyny.

That might make it uncomfortable viewing for some theatregoers but if you’re going to revive the work of a provocateur like Orton, you have to lean into his caustic wit and his satire of social and sexual subterfuge.

If anything, Fall doesn’t go far enough. There’s a sense of hesitancy around some of the play’s unsavoury goings-on and, as Mr Sloane, Stephens is more playful than predatory. Best known as one half of hip-hop duo Rizzle Kicks, he’s making his stage debut here and he’s engaging, but lacks menace.

Daniel Cerqueira, on the other hand, is creepily effective as Kath’s cockney geezer brother Ed. While she infantilises Sloane, he fetishises the young man as his leather-clad chauffeur. Meanwhile, their father Kemp (Christopher Fairbank, channeling Grandad Trotter) suspects Sloane of being a murderer.

All of this creates tension that simmers nicely across the play’s three brisk acts. The house is on the edge of a rubbish dump, so designer Peter McKintosh hangs discarded furniture and bric-a-brac from the ceiling and strews it around the edge of the stage.

There’s some slow-motion movement that’s more distracting than dramatically meaningful and a rave dance routine to Kylie Minogue’s Slow that’s visually arresting but jarringly out-of-period. These shortcomings aside, however, this a welcome revival of Entertaining Mr Sloane that is worth seeing for Outhwaite’s full-pelt performance alone.

Entertaining Mr Sloane is at the Young Vic until 8 November.