Who Played Patience in Patience

Patience is a role in Patience, a operetta that opened West End in 1881.

Fads come and go, and aesthetic poetry is all the rage in town these days, especially among the maidens who have all become groupies of the self-styled poet Reginald Bunthorne - to the dismay of their macho military boyfriends. All but Patience, the virtuous village milkmaid who claims to have never loved anyone. She doesn't care for poetry much either, and, as it turns out, neither does Bunthorne! And while Bunthorne is infatuated with Patience, she falls for her childhood crush Archibald Grosvenor, another famous aesthete who attracts women even faster than Bunthorne. The rigid military men attempt to win back their ladies by comically attempting to be willowy poets, but, when exasperated Bunthorne challenges Grosvenor to give up the current aesthetic craze, he does so willingly - and everything backfires. Being common becomes the new celebrity, and all the ladies choose their old sweethearts, including Patience - proving after all, that every generation has its own temporary insanity!