British to the Backbone

Examiner of Plays' Summary:

This is a specimen of old-fashioned domestic melodrama brought up to the date of the war by making the hero, the victim of the villain, enlist and become a blinded soldier. The villain is an unconscionable rogue and is helped in his villainy by the foolishness of the hero, who places himself in a position to be falsely accused by his father of an office-theft which has been committed by his accuser. Even after he has been driven from home and has married the girl of his heart his enemy still pursues him and his infant daughter - while on his side he has fighting for him a benevolent and extremely wealthy doctor, and a comic protégé who models himself on Charlie Chaplin and is great on ‘films’. At the critical moment the real thief is discovered but the aid of a portrait which he vainly endeavours to buy in at an auction, while the hero recovers his sight by the aid of an operation, and is restored to the arms of his wife and child. The ingenuous fight between vice and virtue is kept up with spirit, if with little regard to probability. Recommended for license. Ernest A. Bendall