(seen at the afternoon performance on 15th October 2025)
An old stage management trick is to cover a sharp blade edge with Sellotape, making a lethal blade safe to watch without ruining the intended effect.
Joe Orton’s writing is like this. Back in 1964 his wit in dissecting society of his era disguised the sharpness of the scalpel he wielded, and the forbidden messages he communicates so brilliantly.
It remains breathtaking to encounter such casual cruelty and denial, on a level unimaginable today. That there was such contradiction between personal freedom and ridged legal taboos. Orton places homosexuality above murder as a crime – seemingly, so did society, almost.
This revival is a message from another time, but director Nadia Fall fails almost to communicate it. Left untouched and played in period – as Fall allows the first half, it is a fascinating insight. No museum piece, a simple history lesson to remind ourselves no matter what social campaigners say, we have improved things considerably.
Oddly, this credit is squandered instantly with a second half opening of strobe neon (Richard Howell’s mood lighting suddenly ruined) and decades demolished to break the spell using far later imagery and signifiers. Theatrical maybe, but Orton’s work sours with the unwanted assistance.
Peter McKintosh’s circular set design contributes little either. Sightline blocking furniture around the perimeter, junk around the stage apron and hanging above, and naked bulbs rising and falling pre-show are distractions. A well-chosen carpet works, as would a single cupboard and chair. All else is another modern overload unrequired.
And so it is the cast who must carry the message against the unwieldly staging.
From an absent-minded bridal parade entrance, Tamzin Outhwaite’s Kath is manipulating and manipulated. Being an unmarried mother and younger sister gives her little control over her life.
What she does retain control over is her sexuality – and Orton takes great pains to point out her twisted freedom in comparison to the concealment his homosexual characters must endure.
Outhwaite’s every mood is forced. Only in the final scene does she reveal natural instincts. It works, and allows her brother Ed (Daniel Cerqueira) to do likewise.
For the rest, Cerqueira reads the part oddly as part Corleone. Too far for a slightly shady bullying businessman in 1960s London, though his repressed gayness is well considered.
Their father, Kemp, allows Christopher Fairbank to produce a totteringly powerless man whose presence is both useful and resented to his children.
Jordan Stephens entering the triangle as Mr Sloane gives Fairbank a key plot moment early on, for a vital callback in the second act. The pair counterbalance throughout, as the outsiders to brother and sister.
Stephens copes with the range Sloane is required to produce, but is unable to resist or overcome the eccentricities of his director’s vision.
This is the weakness of the entire production. An insufficient trust in both the play and period in which it is set means that it misses delivering clearly a message from Orton which still has vital resonance today.
Fairly entertaining, but unfocussed enough to be classed as a bit of a Sloane ranger.
3 stars.