Shaw thing.(You Never Can Tell)(Theater Review)

You Never Can Tell Garrick

Glorious! Duchess

Paul Cotlesloe

George Bernard Shaw is emerging from an undeserved dark age. Virtually from the moment of his death in 1950 he went out of fashion and the theatre fell under the spell of his fellow-Dubliner Beckett, whose dark and alienated tragicomedies set the tone for the ensuing decades. One stills shudders a little at the unreal opulence of Shaw's theatrical world: the drawing-room settings, the silks and the spats, the well-groomed, supremely self-confident Victorians striding hither and thither parading their wisdom and eloquence. But Shaw's wit is always captivating and his knack for storytelling …