Becoming Helen Mirren by Philip Ward

Author:Philip Ward
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Troubador Publishing Ltd
Published: 2019-10-27T16:00:00+00:00

As Lady Macbeth, with Nicol Williamson, 1974 (photo by Reg Wilson © RSC)

THE APPLE CART (1975)

By George Bernard Shaw (1929)

BBC TV, 19 January 1975

It’s hard to imagine now, but in the 1970s the BBC had a series called ‘Play of the Month’. One Sunday every month, two hours of prime time viewing on BBC1 (and remember there were only two BBC TV channels in those days) were devoted to a single classic drama. For those who couldn’t, or wouldn’t, go to the theatre, it must have been their only exposure to Chekhov, Ibsen or Shakespeare. God knows how people would stumble across that kind of education nowadays.

The choice of dramatist in January 1975 (sandwiched between Colditz and the Ten O’Clock News) was less fortunate: GB Shaw. Personally, I respect Shaw as a critic – which is why you’ll find his opinions on other dramatists scattered through this book – but I’ve less time for his own plays. Let’s check in at this point with the caustic Kenneth Tynan, greatest English theatre critic of the twentieth century:

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