George Bernard Shaw’s Leading Ladies

George Bernard Shaw

His heroines, be they clever or naïve, idealistic or calculating, are always charismatic.

Best known for his play Pygmalion, the inspiration behind My Fair Lady, the prolific George Bernard Shaw wrote 62 plays in all, alongside several novels, and a vast body of drama reviews and political writing. A leading member of the Fabian Society, he was at one time considered an early Feminist although this is up for debate. What is certain is his interest in the ‘New Woman’ and First-wave Feminism at the turn of the twentieth century. His heroines, be they clever or naïve, idealistic or calculating, are always charismatic. Many of these leading roles were written with stars of the British stage in mind, like Edith Evans and Mrs Patrick Campbell. Here are some of our favourite Shavian star turns.

In 1937 Greer Garson played Aurora in How He Lied To Her Husband. Garson went on to become one of Hollywood’s biggest stars of the 1940s, winning the Academy Award for Best Actress in 1942. The play was televised live from the Alexandra Palace Studio and Shaw attended the broadcast. In How He Lied To Her Husband, Shaw combined the classic love triangle with ‘knockabout comedy’. Pictured here with Robert Harris as Aurora’s lover Henry.

In 1948 Margaret Lockwood starred as Shaw’s best known heroine Eliza Doolittle in Pygmalion. The Radio Times billed the production thus: 'Played, filmed, broadcast, and now televised! What more can await Eliza Doolittle?'. Lockwood was a star of the stage and screen by this time, but Pygmalion was her television debut.

Dame Maggie Smith played Epifania in The Millionairess in 1972, alongside Tom Baker and Charles Gray. The part was originally written for Edith Evans who turned it down to start with, because she thought Shaw ‘was asking her to play Hitler and Mussolini, but to make them attractive by her bottomless technique and siren charm’!

Shaw was clearly a firm favourite for the BBC’s Play of the Month in 1970s as Pygmalion followed hot on the heels of The Millionairess in 1973. This time Lynn Redgrave starred as our cockney flower-girl Eliza Doolittle.

Filmed in 1983, Androcles And The Lion was made as part of the BBC School’s English File series, with Anna Calder-Marshall as Lavinia opposite Billy Connolly’s Androcles. Written in 1913, Shaw described the play as a ‘religious pantomime’ and wrote it partly in reaction to the huge success of Peter Pan as an alternative play for children. Lavinia equals Barbara Undershaft for faith and sincerity.

In 1989 Helena Bonham Carter played Raina in Arms And The Man. It was one of Shaw’s first major successes, originally performed in 1894 at what is now London’s Playhouse Theatre.

Major Barbara comes to Radio 4 this June. When in 1925 Shaw was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature, the committee described his work as being ‘marked by both idealism and humanity, its stimulating satire often being infused with a singular poetic beauty’ – this is certainly true of Major Barbara.

Eleanor Tomlinson stars as Barbara Undershaft, fresh from filming Series 2 of Poldark! She’s pictured here alongside Jack ‘Warleggan’ Farthing as her lover Adolphus Cusins.