Summary

As Act, Four Scene Three begins, stage directions indicate that the action is taking place on the night of the concert. There is a sense that the other characters are present and watching, although there are no stage directions to suggest that this is so.

An MC appears and tells some bad jokes about elephants, and then sings a song about pearly shells on the beach. He then introduces “two of our fellow holiday-makers present[ing] a heart- warming drama they’ve knocked together themselves entitled ‘The Stranger on the Shore’” (53). He steps aside, and Tom appears.

Tom narrates, and acts in, a short play in which a sailor has too much to drink, falls into the sea, and drowns. He is too drunk to get into heaven, so he is forced to “wander the high seas forever and forever” until he...