Randall's Thumb
Randall's Thumb is a play by W. S. Gilbert that premièred in 1871 at the opening of Marie Litton's Royal Court Theatre in London.
[2] The play received mixed reviews (ranging from "brilliant" to "a very dreadful mistake") but lasted for a successful 123 performances in its original London run.
[1][3] Gilbert had already written a considerable body of stories, plays, poems, criticism and other works by the time he wrote Randall's Thumb.
[4][5] Gilbert's dramatic writing during this time was evolving from his early musical burlesques to a more restrained style, as exemplified in his string of blank-verse fairy comedies.
[7] He was also developing his unique style of absurdist humour, described as "Topsy-Turvy", made up of "a combination of wit, irony, topsyturvydom, parody, observation, theatrical technique, and profound intelligence".
[9] Marie Litton took over the proprietorship of the New Chelsea Theatre in 1871, hiring Walter Emden to remodel the interior, and renamed it the Royal Court.
Gilbert wrote and rehearsed the play at the same time as another work, A Sensation Novel, which he opened only three days after Randall's Thumb at the Gallery of Illustration.
However, to avoid scrutiny that might reveal his felony, he wants Buckthorpe to flirt with said niece and find out about the aunt, to allow Randall to conduct a plausible story about his marriage.
On a rocky coast, Miss Spinn, an elderly spinster, directs servants to set up the picnic and flirts with Joe Bangles, a bachelor of about the same age.
Randall is disliked by the group, but he eventually gets Miss Spinn to have pity on him, and she decides to flirt with him to make Bangles jealous.
Unfortunately, his confused, rambling attempt to ward off her romantic advances goes as follows: Randall arrives in a boat, but is forced to rescue Bangles and Miss Spinn first, as they're on a lower rock about to be covered by sea.
The police arrive and arrest Randall, who attempts to have one last act of revenge, revealing his marriage to Edith's aunt.
The play ends happily: Miss Spinn has protected people Bangles cares about, and her explanation of how she knew shows him a new side to her, which reconciles him to their marriage.
[1] The review in The Times noted that Randall's Thumb was preceded by and followed farces, and also followed and an address in rhyme, "delivered with much eloquence by Mrs. Hermann Vezin".
[15] The reviewer was struck by the "extremely pretty scenery" and praised Gilbert's ability to connect all of the characters "ingeniously" in the involved plot as Randall's deceptions are discovered and Buckthorpe's fortunes blossom, commenting: "The dialogue is written with [Gilbert's] accustomed point, and he has taken great pains to exhibit varieties of marked character.
His anxiety to form a large characteristic assembly has, indeed, led to an exuberance which will render necessary the curtailment of some of the earlier scenes, since the personages who sustain the interest of the play are sometimes thrown into the background by others, whose chief object is to show their own peculiarities.
