M.P. is an 1811 comedy play by Thomas Moore

Thomas Moore

Thomas Moore was an Irish poet, singer, songwriter, and entertainer, now best remembered for the lyrics of The Minstrel Boy and The Last Rose of Summer. He was responsible, with John Murray, for burning Lord Byron's memoirs after his death...

 first staged at the Lyceum Theatre by Samuel James Arnold

Samuel James Arnold

Samuel James Arnold , was an English dramatist.Arnold was the son of Samuel Arnold, Mus. Doc, and was educated for an artist. He produced, however, at the Haymarket Theatre, in 1794, 'Auld Robin Gray,' a musical play in two acts; and this was followed by other works of the same class: 'Who pays the...

. The plot concerns a Member of Parliament

Member of Parliament

A Member of Parliament is a representative of the voters to a :parliament. In many countries with bicameral parliaments, the term applies specifically to members of the lower house, as upper houses often have a different title, such as senate, and thus also have different titles for its members,...

 Sir Charles Canvas who has cheated his elder brother, a naval officer Captain Canvas, out of his inheritance

Inheritance

Inheritance is the practice of passing on property, titles, debts, rights and obligations upon the death of an individual. It has long played an important role in human societies...

. Canvas becomes mixed up with a bluestocking

Bluestocking

A bluestocking is an educated, intellectual woman. Until the late 18th century, the term had referred to learned people of both sexes. However it subsequently was applied primarily to intellectual women, and the French equivalent bas bleu had a similar connotation. The term later developed...

 named Lady Bab Blue and a series of mistaken identities follow.

Moore was dissatisfied with the work and was reluctant about staging it at all. He refused to attend the first two performances before finally attending the third. He believed that many of the references would be too Highbrow

Highbrow

Used colloquially as a noun or adjective, highbrow is synonymous with intellectual; as an adjective, it also means elite, and generally carries a connotation of high culture. The word draws its metonymy from the pseudoscience of phrenology, and was originally simply a physical descriptor...

 for the audience. He tried to alter this by adding some more populist additions, but he feared this sacrificed the integrity of the work.

It was only the second play Moore wrote after The Gypsy Prince

The Gypsy Prince

The Gypsy Prince is a 1801 Comic opera written by Thomas Moore and Michael Kelly staged at the Haymarket Theatre by George Colman. The two men were initially happy to collaborate with each other, but Moore objected to Kelly's making correction's to his work - something that Mozart had allowed when...

, although he had performed in numerous amateur productions, and he decided it would be his last in spite of later tempting offers to write for the stage. In spite of Moore’s misgivings the play received generally good reviews and had a respectable run of performances and was later revived for productions in Bath and Dublin.