Entertaining Mr Sloane

Joe Orton’s delicious slice of suburban perversity, in which Beryl Reid’s lascivious landlady and her gay brother attempt to seduce their psychopathic tenant.

Joe Orton’s delicious tale of suburban perversity, in which a lascivious landlady and her gay brother attempt to seduce the titular tenant, who happens to be a psychopath, was first staged in 1964 and adapted for the BBC in 1968. Two years later Douglas Hickox directed this feature film version, with Beryl Reid as the landlady and Harry Andrews in the other main roles Peter McEnery.

Revelling in his freedom to amplify Orton’s outrageousness, Hickox refashions the play as a ripe slice of British Gothic, with shades of Tennessee Williams and Joseph Losey’s The Servant. ‘The direction becomes as brash as the day-glo colours of Beryl Reid’s see-through mini dress,’ commented Ken Russell.