Entertaining Mr Sloane

Synopsis

A faded living room in suburban London, where floral wallpaper peels and family secrets fester.

Sloane, a devastatingly handsome drifter with a murky past, saunters into the lives of middle-aged Kath and her brother Ed. Kath, desperate for affection, offers Sloane lodging with barely concealed lust. Ed, equally smitten, schemes to make the young man his chauffeur – and more. As Sloane expertly plays both siblings against each other, their elderly father Kemp lurks in the shadows, harbouring a recognition that could shatter this precarious ménage à trois.

Joe Orton’s wickedly funny farce peels back the respectability of 1960s suburbia to reveal the hypocrisy and sexual repression bubbling beneath. Sharp as a gin-soaked razor, the dialogue crackles with innuendo and barely veiled threat. Dark comedy intertwines with moments of genuine menace as Sloane’s true nature is slowly revealed. Orton gleefully skewers British class pretensions and sexual mores, daring his audience to laugh even as they squirm. In this claustrophobic battleground of desire and manipulation, Sloane emerges as both victim and predator – a mirror held up to society’s twisted face.