When the enigmatic Mr Sloane arrives to rent the spare room from impressionable widow Kath, the relationship between landlady and lodger soon begins to blur in this revival of Joe Orton’s witty black comedy.

Arriving at Kath’s (Tamzin Outhwaite) bland abode, the young Mr Sloane (Jordan Stephens) ingratiates himself with his unnerving landlady, whose predatorial attempts to get into his trousers is all too suddenly reciprocated by the eager, and conniving, new arrival. Matters, though, are rapidly complicated by Kath’s suspcious, and bigoted, father Kemp (Christopher Fairbank) who suspects foul play and Kath’s shady businessman brother Ed (Daniel Cerqueira), who also becomes intoxicated by Sloane’s youthful presence. As Orton’s play unfolds, the piece becomes a seductive, chaotic, nightmare for all involved as the lines blur between truth and fiction, and what individuals truly desire.

Outhwaite’s bustling Kath brims with energy and erraticism, with the script quickly setting up Kath’s tragic widowhood and the loss of a child. It is a bleak start for the character who is clearly teetering, or perhaps even in the middle of, a significant psychotic break, with Outhwaite succeeding in bringing a deft blend of both abusrdity and genuine pity for Kath’s character to the fore. It is excruciating to see the much older Kath throw herself upon the willing lodger Sloane. It is a creepy dynamic. Kath looks to replace both a dead husband and a dead child with Sloane, looking to both bed and mother him, which comes to a head on a shocking and darkly funny conclusion to the first half. However, the play moves smoothly from seductive power play to something much darker and more sinister before its conclusion, and this is largely channeled through the shift in Kath’s character by the end. Outhwaite also puts in a good comedic performance here, firing a pair of false teeth with remarkable accuracy across the stage to great effect on more than one occasion.

Stephens’ Sloane is devilishly duplicitous, contrasting his first, polite, reserved, arrival with a presence that is much more severe, and cunning, during the play’s unsettling second half. Stephens takes a little while to get going in the role, but does settle down particularly in his brutal exchanges with Fairbank’s Kemp, and looks more at ease in the stylistic, and rythmic, choreographed sequences embedded by director Nadia Fall and movement director James Cousins.

Meanwhile, Cerqueira’s Ed, cold and abrupt with sister Kath, intolerant of her flitty nature, is an intriguing concept. Ed, whose sexuality is hinted at being a point of contention with his father, like Kath becomes obsessed with Sloane’s presence, taking him on as a driver. Ed’s subservience to Sloane in the second half, fleeting in appearance, is shocking and helps to reiterate the play’s sense of unease, and while Ed risks becoming a cockney caricature, Cerquiera’s Ed works best when domineering Kath or attempting to charm Sloane. 

Rounding the quartet is Fairbank’s Kemp, the siblings’ elderly father whose suspicion of Sloane becomes a point of contention in the suffocating house. Kemp works to represent the audience’s own interrogation of who the real Sloane is, with Fairbank’s portrayal balancing a man who is concerned for his children with concern for his own survival too.

The true star, though, of this production is the gorgeous set, designed by acclaimed designer Peter McKintosh. Kath’s home is on the outskirts of a remote town, blighted by becoming a dumping ground for the rubbish and debris of the townsfolk who abandon their waste around the outside of the house. It is not a particularly subtle metaphor, representing the decline in moral values inside the house as well as outside, yet McKintosh’s design, with the jet black painted objects encircling the round stage, and hanging above the space, a stark reminder that all is not as it seems here. Its suspension above the stage too a reminder of the fragility of the warped facade going on in the home itself, and which could all so easily come crashing down.

Entertaining Mr Sloane does get a bit daft in places, and the inclusion of the strange mid-scene freezes, and random green spotlights, are a little distracting, especially in a play where rapid-fire dialogue is abundant. Yet, at its conclusion, as Sloane’s web of entanglements between Kath, Ed and Kemp are wound, Orton’s play, over sixth years old, remains a provocative and chilling comedy