Showing results by author "George Bernard Shaw" in All Categories

Eight of George Bernard Shaw's most memorable plays in one splendid collection: Mrs. Warren’s Profession, Arms and the Man, Candida, The Devil’s Disciple, Major Barbara, The Doctor’s Dilemma, Misalliance, and Pygmalion.

One of Shaw's most enduring works, Pygmalion is an insightful comedy of class relations and perceptions, as played out between a Cockney flower girl and the irascible speech professor who has taken her on as a pet project.

George Bernard Shaw - or Bernard Shaw, as he preferred to be known - was one of Ireland's foremost dramatists and thinkers. His plays range from contemporary satires to historical allegories, and are infused with ideas, insight, wit and wisdom. Included here are some of his best works, adapted for radio and brought together in reverse chronological order in one statement collection.

A new version of this classic starring Stephen Fry. A chance encounter leads to flower girl Eliza Dootlittle undergoing a life changing transformation.

Irascible phonetics professor Henry Higgins makes a bet with his friend Colonel Pickering that he can train Cockney flower girl Eliza Doolittle to talk ‘like a lady’ and pass as a duchess at the Ambassador’s Ball. As the day of reckoning approaches, can Eliza convince the assembled aristocrats that she’s one of them? And what will become of her afterwards? This effervescent radio version of Shaw’s classic comedy features a stellar cast, including award-winning comedians Alistair McGowan as Henry Higgins, Morgana Robinson as Eliza Doolittle and Al Murray as Alfred Doolittle.

Never has the Revolutionary War been so entertaining. Shaw stands "do or die" melodrama on its head, with a cast of unforgettable characters, from the deliciously urbane "Gentlemanly Johnny" Burgoyne, to the misguided romanticism of beautiful young Judith Anderson, to the Devil's Disciple himself, a dashing young American hero who disdains heroism, even as he makes the ultimate sacrifice for honor and country.

The blowhards, the know-it-alls, the scrupulous and the impecunious are all targets for Shaw's incisive wit in his classic satire of the medical profession. A well-respected physician is forced to choose whom he shall save: a bumbling friend or the ne'er-do-well husband of the woman he loves.

Barbara is a major in the Salvation Army - but she's also the daughter of Andrew Undershaft, a man who's made millions from the sale of weapons of war. The real battle, however, rages between between the devilish father and his idealistic daughter as they answer the question: does salvation come through faith or finance? This sparkling comedy traverses family relations, religion, ethics and politics - as only Shaw, the master dramatist, can!

This is one of three plays Shaw published as Plays Unpleasant in 1898; they were termed "unpleasant" because they were intended, not to entertain their audiences—as traditional Victorian theatre was expected to—but to raise awareness of social problems and to censure exploitation of the laboring class by the unproductive rich. In this play, Dr. Harry Trench becomes disillusioned when he discovers how his fiancee's father, Mr. Sartorius, makes his money. However, it is soon revealed that Trench's own income is far from untainted. (Summary by wildemoose and Wikipedia) Cast:Dr. Harry Trench: ...

This unique book brings together George Bernard Shaw's witty and iconoclastic take on Wagner's masterwork, The Ring of the Nibelungen, with the composer's own essay on the role of art in revolution.

The Emporor of Rome and the Queen of the Nile as only Shaw could have imagined them! He is a self-doubting cynic who is experiencing a mid-life crisis and she is an imperious and impertinent child on the threshold of womanhood. This recording also includes Shaw's alternate Prologue and his post-text notes.

This is a short one act comedy by Shaw which involves two couples on a cruise who both need help figuring out their relationships. (Summary by Michele Eaton) Cast: Narrator:MichaelMaggs Mrs Lunn: wib66 Mrs Juno: qthemusic123 Gregory Lunn: Hamlet Juno: Aiken

To celebrate Radio 3's 50th anniversary, Man and Superman was directed by Sir Peter Hall, and preserved for all time in this lush audio dramatization. "A comedy and a philosophy", Man and Superman is based on the Don Juan theme, and using all the elements from Mozart's Don Giovanni, Shaw reordered them so that Don Juan becomes the quarry instead of the huntsman. Boasting an outstanding cast including Ralph Fiennes, Juliet Stevenson, Dame Judi Dench, John Wood, Nicholas Le Prevost, and Paul Merton.

In the Greek legend, a sculptor, Pygmalion, created a statue of a woman so beautiful that he fell in love with it. Later the goddess Aphrodite responded to his earnest prayers and brought the statue, named Galatea, to life. Shaw's Pygmalion is a fussy unmarried professor of phonetics, Henry Higgins, who claims that he could train an uneducated person off the street to speak so that he or she could pass as a member of the aristocracy. His Galatea is Eliza Doolittle, who sells flowers at Covent Garden and whose father is a dissipated but cunning vagrant.

In this witty comedy of errors, the Clandon siblings, Gloria and the twins, Dolly and Philip attempt to uncover the identity of their long lost father. Playwright George Bernard Shaw uses the odd mix of eccentric characters thrown together in a seaside setting to make a number of sharp observations about marriage, romance, and parenthood. (Summary by Kelly S. Taylor) Cast List Mr. Valentine, the Dentist cavaet Mrs. Clandon Kelly S. Taylor Gloria Clandon Elise Dee Dolly Clandon Jenn Broda Philip Clandon ToddHW Mr. Fergus Crampton Algy Pug Mr. Finch McComas Greg Giordano Walter, the waiter ...

This witty masterpiece combines high comedy with social commentary as it deflates romantic misconceptions of love and warfare. First produced on the London stage in 1894, Arms and the Man is one of the most frequently acted and studied of Shaw's plays.

In this allegorical play, the eccentric Captain Shorover's home hosts a cast, each of whom represents some evil in the modern world.

George Bernard Shaw's warm and witty play continues to challenge conventional wisdom about male/female relationships. Candida concerns a beautiful married woman's choice between the two men who love her.

Modern parallels abound in the plight of Cambridge-educated mathematics wiz Vivie Warren, who discovers that her comfortable upbringing was financed in unspeakable ways. George Bernard Shaw pits a clever heroine against a memorable gallery of rogues in this superbly intelligent (and still shocking) comedy, banned for eight years from the English stage.

.Mrs. Warren's Profession is a play written by George Bernard Shaw in 1893, and first performed in London in 1902 but was banned after two performances because of the profession talked about. The play is about a former prostitute, now a madam (brothel proprietor), who attempts to come to terms with her disapproving daughter. It illustrates Shaw's belief that the act of prostitution was not caused by moral failure but by economic necessity. It also has a lot to say about the hypocrisy of English society that profited from many despised and illegal professions and used people in despicable ways ...