Doctor O'Toole

Examiner of Plays' Summary:

A genial little domestic comedy of Irish provincial life. The Doctor, a genial soul, has a daughter whose lack of dowry causes her lover's father, a tippling old curmudgeon, to forbid his son's marriage to her under penalty of the loss of his inheritance. The old drunkard however has to consult the Doctor concerning the suspicion that he is being poisoned by his wife, who for her part has just confided to the Doctor that she has been putting into her husband's whisky a quack nostrum warranted to cure his taste for drink. This gives the kindly matrimonial plotter his chance, and by playing off the indignation of the wife against the fears of the husband, he manages to get out of them their consent to the match on which he has set his heart. The incidental study of village character among the Doctor's friends and patients are capital: and the humour is wholesome throughout. Recommends for Licence. Ernest A. Bendall.