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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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Taking place on a single day in May 1909, a self-made millionaire and his family invite their future nobleman-in-law for a visit to their estate in Surrey, England. In this delightfully clever play, issues of gender, class, politics, and family are all targets for Shaw's keen wit.

Man and Superman was the first drama to be broadcast on the BBC's Third Programme on October 1, 1946. To celebrate Radio 3's 50th anniversary, the play 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.

George Bernard Shaw has been called the second greatest playwright in English (after William Shakespeare) and one of the inventors of modern celebrity as the most famous public intellectual of his time. Beginning in the 1880s, as a critic and as a playwright, he transformed British drama, bringing to it intellectual substance, ethical imperatives, and modernity itself, setting the theatrical course for the subsequent century. That his legacy endures 70 years after his death is testament to the prescience of his thinking and his prolific creativity.

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.

Pygmalion by George Bernard Shaw is the fascinating tale of Henry Higgins, a professor of speech and phonetics who takes on the task of teaching Eliza Doolittle, a lower-class flower seller, how to "act like a lady".

Gifted playwright George Bernard Shaw's Saint Joan is based on the life and trials of Joan of Arc whose canonisation occurred shortly before he wrote this play. Based on both substantial information of her life in Medieval France and records of her trial, Shaw characterizes this unique woman caught between the forces of the Church and law in this classic production with a strong cast supporting Siobhan McKenna's fine interpretation of this tragic heroine.

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.

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.

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.

Simon Cadell stars as Henry Higgins with Imelda Staunton as Eliza Doolittle in this BBC Radio 4 production of Shaw’s famous play. When phonetics tutor and linguist Henry Higgins meets Cockney flower girl Eliza Doolittle, he makes a bet with his friend Colonel Pickering that he can teach her to speak so well that she will be able to pass herself off as a Duchess at a society ball.

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!

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.

Children, if they are to grow up as citizens, must learn a good deal that their parents could not teach them even if they had the necessary time. The statesman must make provision for this teaching or he will presently find himself faced with the impossible task of maintaining civilization with savages instead of citizens