Jordan Stephens and Tamzin Outhwaite in Entertaining Mr Sloane [Ellie Kurttz]

IT’S a bold choice for Nadia Fall to open her inaugural season at the Young Vic with Joe Orton’s Entertaining Mr Sloane (1964), notorious at the time for its erotic provocation and moral nihilism.

The play opens with middle-aged Kath (Tamzin Outhwaite) interviewing the enigmatic Mr Sloane (Jordan Stephens) about renting a room in the home she shares with her elderly father, Dadda (Christopher Fairbank). As soon as Sloane accepts, she slips into full-on seduction mode.

Kath has form and her brother, Ed (Daniel Cerqueira), a businessman and closeted homosexual, is outraged by the arrangement, worrying about the damage to his reputation. Yet when he meets Sloane he too is captivated, and swiftly offers him a job as a chauffeur, complete with leather uniform.

A warped power dynamic emerges, fuelled by lust and the desire for control, with Orton keeping us guessing as to who has the upper hand. But Dadda is suspicious of Sloane, convinced he’s seen him before.

Fall’s in-the-round production, accentuates the voyeurism that runs through the play. She draws out the farcical elements to great effect, while preserving the darker undercurrents of coercion and sexual manipulation.

Stephens (from hip-hop duo Rizzle Kicks) makes an impressive stage debut, capturing the chancer’s charm and mystery in the early scenes, though he could bring more menace to the role in the second half. Outhwaite provides much of the comedy as the increasingly desperate Kath, while Cerqueira and Fairbank are pitch-perfect in their roles.

Peter McKintosh’s design cleverly evokes the rubbish tip that Kath’s home overlooks: discarded furniture and other junk hang suspended above the stage, casting a shadow over her sparse living room. It’s a fitting visual metaphor for the corruption, moral decay, and social alienation of the time.

Until November 8
youngvic.org/