It was revived by the Old Vic Company in London and on tour in the UK in 1979 in a new orchestration by Don Fraser and played in a double-bill with Garrick's Miss In Her Teens.

It tells the story of an old miser who keeps his fiancée behind the closed door of their home for fear that she will not be faithful to him (in Cervantes's version, the woman is his wife).

[2] Mungo is a stereotype: a musical, heavy drinking, money-grubbing servant who speaks in an approximation of the black dialect of West Indies slaves.

He is normally obsequious to whites, but in moments of drunkenness or solitude, he becomes impudent: An actor named John Moody, who was supposed to have been familiar with the dialect of the blacks in the West Indies, was originally scheduled to play the part.

Audience reactions to Dibdin's performance were overwhelmingly positive, and in 1787, he spun his fame as Mungo into a one-man show wherein he sang, gave speeches, and did impressions of black people.

At the end of the night addressed directly to the audience on a variety of social issues which affected the United States, Europe, and Africa.

Aldridge tried to play both Othello (as the title character) and The Padlock on the same night to make the audience both think and laugh, show his acting talent and generate good publicity.