20th-Century theatre
A01=Joe Orton
Author_Joe Orton
black comedy
British playwright
British theatre
Category=DD
Category=DDC
Category=DDL
Category=DSG
cult classic
eq_bestseller
eq_biography-true-stories
eq_isMigrated=1
eq_isMigrated=2
eq_nobargain
eq_non-fiction
eq_poetry
farce
Joe Orton
Jordan Stephens
Loot
satire
Sexuality
social satire
What the Butler Saw
Young Vic
Product details
- ISBN 9781350607019
- Weight: 107g
- Dimensions: 130 x 196mm
- Publication Date: 17 Sep 2025
- Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing PLC
- Publication City/Country: GB
- Product Form: Paperback
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Tell him to put his trousers on. Cantering around the house with a bare bum . . . Can’t leave you alone for five minutes.
When lonely Kath offers the mysterious Mr Sloane a room to rent in the family home, her businessman brother Ed does not approve. After all, what will people say? But soon, he becomes equally taken with the charismatic young Sloane. Only their old Dadda remains wary, convinced that he recognises this stranger. What begins as a convenient living arrangement spirals into a dangerous game of desire and deceit.
Joe Orton’s 1964 cult classic brims with manipulation, seduction, and a devilish wit.
This edition was published to coincide with the revival in September 2025 at London's Young Vic.
Joe Orton (1933-1967) was an English playwright noted for his black comedies, which combine genteel dialogue with violent and shocking action. He delighted in shocking audiences by breaking taboos surrounding sexuality and death in conventionally structured 'black' farces involving epigrammatic dialogue and frenetic, convoluted plots. His plays include Entertaining Mr Sloane (1964), Loot (1965) and What the Butler Saw (1969).
