John Kingsley Orton, known by the pen name of Joe Orton, was an English playwright, author, and diarist. His public career, from 1964 until his murder in 1967 by his partner, was short but highly influential. During this brief period he shocked, outraged, and amused audiences with his scandalous black comedies.
Entertaining Mr. Sloane
Kath Kemp, a fat and "fortyish" spinster, discovers Mr. Sloane, a svelte blonde youth, sunbathing on a tombstone. She invites Sloane to lodge at her home, where he meets doddering Dadda Kemp and Kath's homosexual brother, Ed. Attracted by the youth's trim physique, middle-aged sports enthusiast Ed engages Sloane as his chauffeur and buys him an appropriate uniform, all of leather. Equally enamored, Kath seduces Sloane and is impregnated. Breaking 20 years' silence Dadda informs Ed of Sloane's perfidy and announces that the young man is the fugitive murderer of Kemp's former employer. When Sloane and Kemp are left alone, the drifter kicks the old man to death. Dadda is laid in state on the kitchen table, and the siblings agree to represent the death as accidental, on the condition that Sloane marry both. Tearing the Bible from Dadda's hand, Ed performs the service uniting Sloane and sister, and Kath reciprocates by marrying Sloane and Ed.
