Entertaining Mr Sloane reviews round-up starring Tamzin Outhwaite & Jordan Stephens, Young Vic

"More outrageous than ever and Tamzin Outhwaite is superb"

"Sixty years on and Joe Orton's Entertaining Mr Sloane still shocks with a fantastic Tamzin Outhwaite at its black heart."

"Half Pinter/half Beckett (with a hint of Steptoe & Son)"

"Still outrageous (maybe even more so in this era of delicate sensibilities) it makes the most of Orton’s singularly British cocktail of Carry On and Donald McGill augmented by an unadulterated satirical venom that was the playwright’s trademark."

"Joe Orton’s murky comedy of despair and desire still unsettles"

"Tamzin Outhwaite and Jordan Stephens shine in Nadia Fall’s sharp revival of Orton’s 60s play – where lust and manipulation jostle under the chintz"

"Set designer Peter McKintosh’s in-the-round stage is a neat circle of chintz lapped by filth."

"This rancorous biological family (with Christopher Fairbank’s querulous old Dadda, like an unkempt gerbil) conceals a sump of misery, especially for Kath, whom Outhwaite makes at once ditsy and shrewd. Daniel Cerqueira’s Ed, a lubricious tongue poking between his teeth, is all bite and bluster: “Your youth pleads for leniency and by God I’m going to give it.”

"Six decades on, Orton’s play shows its age: drum-tight, then increasingly chasing its tail. But Fall’s opening show as artistic director of the Young Vic grins with the worst of human behaviour – and that never grows old."

"Tamzin Outhwaite is unforgettably monstrous"

"Jordan Stephens exudes a sneering sexual allure as the mysterious tenant in this hugely atmospheric revival of Joe Orton’s play"

"It’s hard to watch Nadia Fall’s hugely atmospheric revival of Entertaining Mr Sloane at the Young Vic and not wonder how much more transgressive it must have seemed to audiences back in 1964. But there’s more to Orton than shock tactics, as this in-the-round production reminds us, with Tamzin Outhwaite dominating every second as the obsessive, houseproud Kath, fussing and lusting over her mysterious new tenant."

"It’s a stunning performance. Orton’s ornate language can be every bit as sinister as Pinter’s, yet the shafts of manic humour constantly catch you off-balance. Tottering around the stage, Outhwaite is a human gargoyle who cradles a cloth like a baby and offers the newcomer a “motherly kiss” before turning into an unlikely seductress, all the while waging a quiet war of nerves with her decrepit father (beautifully played by Christopher Fairbank) and her officious brother Ed (the equally assured Daniel Cerqueira)."

"Joe Orton’s kinky comedy of sexual desperation is still appallingly funny"
"Entertaining Mr Sloane may be old enough to qualify for senior-citizen travel concessions but, despite the odd creak, Joe Orton’s breakthrough black comedy of 1964 still exudes fresh wit and youthful mischief."
"It hails from a time when a play about a mature landlady and her seedy brother making predatory advances on a lusty young male lodger with bisexual leanings would have been the height of outré perversion."

"as the action proceeds, we observe the way people driven by extreme emotional, sexual and financial need will stoop to anything."

"Outhwaite plays the coquette, all innocent pouts and calculated glances. But she also gives Kath an abiding quality of quiet desolation and brittle desperation."

"Simply too nice, even at its nastiest"

"Joe Orton’s twisted comedy about sex and class should be ripe for a modern revival but here it is more Carry On than carnal"

"Fall seems to assume the best intentions of the characters. Everyone here is simply too nice, even at their nastiest. Stephens’s Sloane is too breezy, Outhwaite’s Kath too sweet, Cerqueira’s Ed just a bit lost. Without the malevolence all that’s left is the comedy, and even that struggles to break through the stiffness. Turned into a slightly flat period piece, it’s a Mr Sloane that’s entertaining, but not much more."

"Tamzin Outhwaite and Daniel Cerqueira are decent as brother and sister Kath and Ed, each vying for the attention and body of young and sexy new lodger Mr Sloane."

"Stephens can’t tune into the rhythm of the constant whip of dialogue, sticking to genial, staccato delivery which turns him into something of a blank canvas."

"More prissy than predatory"

"Unfortunately, Fall’s staging is – pun fully intended – all to cock. Her production is stylistically muddled and unevenly acted, with the result that neither its shocks nor its savage comedy really register. "

"Outhwaite buzzes around like a bluebottle, girlishly pigeon-toed, her lonely Kath devouring Stephens’ Sloane with her eyes; she’s a toxic and tortured mix of maternal longing, arrested development and voracious sexual desperation. But Stephens doesn’t come close to matching her energy – it’s as if they’re acting in completely different productions. "

"The issues persist with the arrival of Daniel Cerqueira as Ed, Kath’s bully of a brother, who is just as keen to sink his teeth into Sloane’s firm flesh as his sister, and Christopher Fairbank as Kemp, their frail father, who sees straight through the sinister newcomer. As this disturbingly dysfunctional trio, bound by blood, convention and abuse, the actors work hard – although the two men never achieve Outhwaite’s febrile intensity. "

"This drab and unfunny take on Joe Orton’s breakthrough play is a baffling start to Nadia Fall’s tenure at the Young Vic"

"Despite the hot-pink posters and the presence of Jordan ‘the guy out of Rizzle Kicks’ Stephens in the title role, Fall’s take feels both wilfully dated – very much a ’60s period piece – and pointedly unfunny, trading the menacing comedy associated with Orton (‘dark farce’ is the usual term) for drab naturalism.""

"Tamzin Outhwaite is the best thing here as horny-but-tragic Kath. Yes, she throws herself at Stephens’s Sloane in cartoonish fashion. But someone has to get the party started, frankly, and besides she does a great job of portraying how damaged and desolate Kath is – her every pass at Sloane feels like a twisted gesture of love directed at her dead son."

"Stephens is solid in the sense you wouldn't think ‘that guy’s not an actor’, but neither does he have the range or nuance to salvage the show, which a genuinely very, very good actor might have done. He lacks menace, and largely plays Sloane as a sexed-up naïf who has accidentally fallen into something bordering a life of crime."

"Daniel Cerqueira does such a convincing job of playing her brother Ed as a pathologically dreary man that his infatuation with Sloane is barely discernible, and certainly not in any way milked for laughs. "