Entertaining Mr Sloane

When Joe Orton‘s comedy Entertaining Mr Sloane first exploded
on the stage of the Arts Theatre in 1964, the Daily Telegraph’s then critic,
WA Darlington, infamously declared, “I feel as if snakes had been
writhing around my feet.” That the play is still capable of arousing strong
reactions is illustrated by the fact that Darlington’s Telegraph successor,
Charles Spencer, has been moved to declare in his review of this
revival, “I’m not sure that the old boy wasn’t on to something.”

The group of American students sitting behind me when I attended seemed likewise shocked and titillated in equal measure by the subversively dark sexual
undercurrents coursing through the play. I lost count of the number of times
the girls exclaimed, “Oh Gaaahd!”, and the boys, “Oh Maaahn!”

Orton weaves a tangled sexual web in the triangle of desire, control and
manipulation that simmers between two single middle-aged siblings – a
brother (Clive Francis, a fine study in repressed desire and
repellant sleaziness) and sister (Alison Steadman, giving another in
her memorable repertoire of comedy grotesques) – and the attractive young
man (Neil Stuke, smooth in every sense) who comes to stay with them
and for whose affections they compete. A fourth character, the father of the
brother and sister (superbly taken by Bryan Pringle), meets a cruel,
heartless fate, and adds an uneasy edge to the proceedings. The play
alternately brings to mind a Pinteresque comedy of menace, like {The
Caretaker::E0100067215}, and the Wildean comedy of social and character observation, like The Importance of Being Earnest.

Terry Johnson‘s production locates the pace and panache of the plot,
but though individually all the performances are terrific, they don’t quite
work to the same comic rhythms. It’s as if the actors are taking their parts in
isolation of one other.

Entertaining Mr Sloane– which received its world premiere at the tiny Arts Theatre – is
welcome back in the theatre, galvanising its new, recently refurbished incarnation
as a home for interesting revivals and new work.

Mark Shenton