Entertaining Mr Sloane

It’s been 16 years since the last major London production of Joe Orton’s breakthrough play Entertaining Mr Sloane, and over a decade since the last major London Orton revival full stop (a 2012 West End production of What the Butler Saw). To a large extent that’s simply a result of the bleak ’60s farceur’s tragically slim body of work, but it’s high time he came around again and new Young Vic artistic director Nadia Fall helms this revival of Mr Sloane as the opening production of her first season at the theatre. What if anything it will tell us about the tenor of her programming at the Vic remains to be seen, but certainly we’ll find out if she can do funny. Tamzin Outhwaite and Daniel Cerqueira lead the cast as a pair of siblings who both fall for their charismatic lodger Mr Sloane, much to the misgivings of their frail father.