Entertaining Mr Sloane

Book excerpt: 'Entertaining Mr Sloane' was first staged in 1964. Despite its success in performance, and being hailed by Sir Terence Rattigan as 'the best first play' he had seen in 'thirty odd years', it was not until shortly before Joe Orton's untimely death in 1967 that theatre audiences and critics began to more fully appreciate the originality of Orton's elegant, alarming and hilarious writing. The play centres on the exploits of a landlady and her brother who entrap a young man into sexual company, each for six months of the year.