OVERVIEW

• Playwright

  George Bernard (GB) Shaw 

• Setting

  The Royal Palace, sometime in the future.

• Synopsis

  Shaw's 1928 preface describes the play as "a comedy in which a King defeats an attempt by his popularly elected Prime Minister to deprive him of the right to influence public opinion through the press and the platform: in short, to reduce him to a cipher. The King's reply is that rather than be a cipher he will abandon his throne and take his obviously very rosy chance of becoming a popularly elected Prime Minister himself." It is believed that the character of King Magnus may have been based on Shaw himself.

• Play Type

  Plays General
  

  Number Of Acts

  Full-Length

• Cast Size Male

  10

• Cast Size Female

  5

ORIGINAL PRODUCTION

• Date of First Production

  19 August 1929

• Production Notes

  'The Apple Cart' was first produced in Polish at the Teatr Polski in Warsaw in June 1929. The Malvern Festival production listed here was the first performance of the play in English.

• Producer

• Original Venue

• Venue Notes

  Presented at the Festival Theatre, Malvern.

SOURCE OF INFORMATION

The information for this entry was taken from The Bodley Head Bernard Shaw: Volume 6.