They are joined by Toad, who persuades Mole and Rat to join him on a holiday in his new horse-drawn caravan, pulled by the querulous horse Alfred. Mole emerges from his underground home, and meets Rat and Badger for the first time. Marigold and the nurse are not seen again until the epilogue of the play. Marigold tells her nurse about the riverbank animals, and the scene fades into the main action. The play is framed by scenes featuring two characters not in Grahame's book: a 12-year-old girl, Marigold, and her nurse, sitting near a river. The play comprises a prologue, four acts and an epilogue: The first London productions were at the Lyric Theatre on 17 December 1930 and the Savoy Theatre on 22 December 1931, directed by Frank Cellier. The first production was at the Playhouse Theatre, Liverpool, on 21 December 1929, under the direction of William Armstrong. That is why I accepted a suggestion, which I should have refused in the case of any other book as too difficult for me, that I should dramatize The Wind in the Willows. It may be that to turn Mr Kenneth Grahame into a play is to leave unattractive finger-marks all over him, but I love his books so much that I cannot bear to think of anybody else disfiguring them. Your hands and my hands are no cleaner than anybody else's hands, yet the sort of well-thumbed bread-and-butter which we prefer is that on which we have placed our own thumbs. There are familiarities which we will allow only ourselves to take.

Toad of Toad Hall by Katie Vandyck