Randall's Thumb is a play by W. S. Gilbert that premièred in 1871 at the opening of Marie Litton's Royal Court Theatre in London. Its plot, based on a short story that Gilbert had published the year before, relates how the forger Randall blackmails the innocent Buckthorpe for a crime he did not commit, hence putting him "under Randall's thumb". In the play, several characters pretend to be different from their real selves, a theme to be repeated in later works by Gilbert. The play received mixed reviews (ranging from "brilliant" to "a very dreadful mistake") but lasted for a successful 123 performances in its original London run.Gilbert had already written a considerable body of stories, plays, poems, criticism and other works by the time he wrote Randall's Thumb. Its success led to an American production and to more Gilbert plays produced at the Royal Court Theatre. He would go on to write more successful plays and, between 1871 and 1896, the libretti to the popular series of Gilbert and Sullivan operas. Source: Wikipedia (en)