Entertaining Mr Sloane

Act One

Act One opens as Kath shows a prospective lodger around the house she shares with her father and brother. Mr. Sloane is an attractive young man with an air of danger about him, and Kath is clearly attracted to him. As they negotiate the terms of his rent and board, she confides that she was once married and had a son who died but would now have been around the age of Sloane. However, Kath quickly admits that her son didn’t die, but was given up for adoption at the insistence of her brother as the child was illegitimate. In return, Sloane tells Kath that he was orphaned at the age of 8 following the death of his parents in mysterious circumstances. He was then raised in an orphanage.

Kath’s father, Kemp, returns home and is clearly annoyed at the prospect of a stranger moving into their house. Left alone with Sloane, he tells him about the murder of his former employer. Kemp recounts how his employer was killed by a hitchhiker Kemp had seen and--he says after studying Sloane’s