The Private Secretary

The play was adapted by the young actor Charles Hawtrey from the German Der Bibliothekar, a comedy by Gustav von Moser.

[2] Actors who played the Rev Robert Spalding included Herbert Beerbohm Tree,[1] W. S. Penley, Frank Thornton,[3] and James Finlayson.

Cattermole senior, Douglas's uncle newly returned from India, calls at the chambers; he takes Spalding to be his nephew and is disgusted at his meek and mild manner.

Old Mr Marsland, unconvinced that Cattermole junior can be such a milksop as his uncle thinks him, sends a telegraph to Douglas's chambers as a result of which the real Spalding hurries down to the house.

[6] The Observer commented that the play "only entertains its hearers by fits and starts … a purposeless romp, no matter how spiritedly it is conducted, cannot last for four acts without becoming tedious to all concerned.

"[7] The Pall Mall Gazette thought that the piece dragged badly, but suggested that there was enough comic material to make a good play after a thorough revision.

In 1927 The Times commented that history had not borne out its original harsh verdict, and that audiences still laughed throughout the play, which demonstrated its continuing strength after more than forty years.

[11] In 1946 the critic Allardyce Nicoll commented that the play "coldly regarded in the script, seems utterly beneath contempt" but that its extraordinary success showed that it "formed a not entirely despicable medium for farcical interpretation."