Dan Laurence

George Bernard Shaw

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Three Plays for Puritans

Androcles and the Lion

Heartbreak House

Plays Unpleasant

Major Barbara

Man and Superman

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Pygmalion

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"in Good King Charles's Golden Days"; Buoyant Billions; Farfetched Fables; Shakes Versus Shav; Why She Would not

In Good King Charles's Golden Days: a true history that never happened. A discussion play; the issues of nature, power and leadership are debated between King Charles II ('Mr Rowley'), Isaac Newton, George Fox and the artist Godfrey Kneller. 
Buoyant Billions: a comedy of no manners. 
Farfetched fables. Shaw's thoughts simplified. 
Shakes vs. Shav. Puppets portray Shaw and Shakespeare. The play comprises a comic argument between the two playwrights, an intellectual Punch and Judy. 
Why She Would Not. His final play.

George Bernard Shaw was born in Dublin in 1856. Although essentially shy, he created the persona of G. B. S., the showman, satirist, controversialist, critic, pundit, wit, intellectual buffoon and dramatist. Commentators brought a new adjective into English: Shavian, a term used to embody all his brilliant qualities. 
After his arrival in London in 1876 he became an active Socialist and a brilliant platform speaker. He wrote on many social aspects of the day: on Common Sense about the War (1914), How to Settle the Irish Question (1917) and The Intelligent Woman's Guide to Socialism and Capitalism (1928). He undertook his own education at the British Museum and consequently became keenly interested in cultural subjects. Thus his prolific output included music, art and theatre reviews, which were collected into several volumes such as Music in London 1890-1894 (3 vols, 1931); Pen Portraits and Reviews (1931); and Our Theatres in the Nineties (3 vols, 1931). He also wrote five novels and some shorter fiction, including The Black Girl in Search of God and Some Lesser Tales and Cashel Byron's Profession, both published in Penguin's Bernard Shaw Library. 
He conducted a strong attack on the London theatre and was closely associated with the intellectual revival of British theatre. His plays fall into several categories: 'Plays Pleasant'; 'Plays Unpleasant'; comedies; chronicle-plays; 'metabiological Pentateuch' (Back to Methuselah, a series of plays); and 'political extravaganzas'. Bernard Shaw died in 1950.

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Dan Laurence

George Bernard Shaw

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