Dan Laurence

This volume features the play Misalliance, which explores the incongruities of human nature and family life, and Shaw's one-act burlesque, The Fascinating Foundling.

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.

This is a collection of the plays of George Bernard Shaw that includes "The Millionairess", "Too True to be Good" and "The Simpleton of the Unexpected Isles".

While some of Shaw’s earlier plays are still performed, his later plays, such as the ones in this volume, are barely known. As the collective title indicates, the themes here are political; yet, frankly, it is doubtful how seriously we can now take Shaw as a political thinker. Despite writing in the 1930s, he has little to say of the nature of totalitarianism: although he satirises Fascist dictators in “Geneva”, the satire is disappointingly mild. Neither did Shaw appear to foresee (on the evidence of these plays, at least) the imminent collapse of the British Empire.But it is Shaw the dramatist rather than Shaw the political philosopher who still holds our attention – even in plays as explicitly political as these. He had a sharp intellect and a quirky sense of humour, and his dialogue still glints and sparkles: he couldn’t write a dull line if he tried. No matter how serious the themes he addresses, the crispness of his writing and his lightness of touch still scintillate.Shaw seems, perhaps unfairly, out of fashion nowadays. But even in these lesser-known works, he demonstrates his matchless ability, still undimmed, to provoke and to entertain.

Shaw's humorous satire of the medical profession.

Androcles and the Lion is a 1912 play written by George Bernard Shaw.Androcles and the Lion is Shaw's retelling of the tale of Androcles, a slave who is saved by the requited mercy of a lion. In the play, Shaw makes Androcles out to be one of many Christians being led to the Colosseum for torture. Characters in the play exemplify several themes and takes on both modern and supposed early Christianity, including cultural clash between Jesus' teachings and traditional Roman values.