Wild Oats is a comedy play by the Irish writer John O'Keeffe which premiered at the Theatre Royal, Covent Garden in 1791.

[3] The naval captain Sir George Thunder and his valet and bosun John Dory arrive at an unknown country house on their hunt for deserters.

Hearing his son Harry has left the naval academy at Portsmouth, he sends John to bring him back to woo Amaranth.

It was revived successfully by the Royal Shakespeare Company in London in autumn 1976, with Alan Howard as Rover and a cast that also included Ben Cross, Joe Melia, Zoë Wanamaker and Jeremy Irons.

The Royal National revived it again in 1995[6] and had Alan Cox as Harry, Anton Lesser as Rover, Benjamin Whitrow as Ephraim, Sarah Woodward as Amaranth and James Bolam as George.

In October 2012 it was the first main-house production at Bristol Old Vic after its restoration, re-set in the 1940s and with a cast including Sam Alexander, Kim Wall, Jo Herbert, Hugh Skinner and Isaac Stanmore.