MR BERNARD SHAW.

Manawatu Standard, Volume LVII, Issue 201, 26 July 1937, Page 8

MR BERNARD SHAW.

TELEVISION APPEARANCE. Mr George Bernard Shaw made an unrehearsed appearance on a television screen when his play, “How He Lied to Her Husband,” was televised recently. It was the first Shaw play to be televised, and Mr Shaw broke his hitherto-cherished personal rule by taking a bow after the fall of the curtain. After seeing the play on a receiving set he walked into the studio, and faced the cameras and the sound apparatus. Employing his typical Shavian shrewdness, he forestalled critics by being self-critical.

“You might not suppose it from my yeteran appearance, but the truth is that I am the author of that ridiculous little play you have just heard,” he said.

Explaining his curtain appearance, he hinted that the Shavian obstinacy was the cause of this very special occasion, because, “as a writer of plays, I never come before the curtain to accept a call. But you see,” he said, “on this occasion you have not got the power to call me.” Asked later if he was impressed by television, he laughed with such good humour that it might have been thought that it negatived the acidity of his reply, which was an airy “Not the very slightest.”