# Sir Ralph Bloomfield Bonington — The Doctor’s Dilemma character guide

> Sir Ralph Bloomfield Bonington in The Doctor’s Dilemma by George Bernard Shaw.

**Role:** supporting

**Also known as:** Sir Ralph, Bloomfield Bonington, simple Ralph, B.B. B.B., B.B. Sir Ralph, B.B. Altogether, B.B. Beaming, B.B. Severely, B.B. Downstairs, B.B.

**First appearance:** 0003-act-i

## Snapshot

A beaming society physician whose bedside manner is magnificent and whose medicine is nonsense, he prescribes optimism and Cornwall with equal confidence.

## Who they are

Sir Ralph Bloomfield Bonington is the most charming and least competent of the doctors, a man whose eloquence and warmth win patients even as his treatments do nothing. He lends Dubedat ten pounds after the artist confides that his wife has taken a fancy to him, unaware that Walpole heard the same story. His house is full of spoiled animals and his manner full of soothing platitudes, making him a comic emblem of medical authority without substance.

## Links

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