Introduction & Overview of Entertaining Mr. Sloane by Joe Orton

Entertaining Mr. Sloane Introduction

Entertaining Mr. Sloane was Joe Orton's first full-length play and it initiated a meteoric, three-year career that established him as one of the most significant writers of stage farce m the twentieth century This exalted stature is now supported largely by two additional full-length plays-Loot (1965), and What the Butler Saw (produced posthumously in 1969)-and to a lesser extent by four one-act plays originally written for radio and television.

Entertaining Mr. Sloane opened in London in May of 1964 in a small "fringe" or off-Broadway like theatre. Its unconventional subject matter, explicit sexual themes, and coarse humor drew contradictory reviews, as did Orton's plays throughout his career. However, by the end of June, 1964, the controversial nature of the play helped catapult it into a major London theatre and Orton's short but brilliant career was launched. The most persuasive early praise came from the extremely popular but very conventional...
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