On a hot, late Aug day sometime in the late 1930s, eight people get on a little, stray island off the Devonshire seashore of England. Each look to have got an invitation tailor to his or her personal fortune, such as an offering of employ or an unexpected late summertime vacation. They are met by Seth Thomas and Ethel Will Rogers, the pantryman and cook/housekeeper, who province that their host, Mr Ulick Jessye Norman Robert Owen and his married woman Mrs Una Nancy Robert Owen, have got, curiously, not yet arrive.