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The Apple Cart

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The Apple Cart: A Political Extravaganza
Written byGeorge Bernard Shaw
Date premiered14 June 1929
Place premieredPolish Theatre, Warsaw
Original languageEnglish
SubjectA British king defends his role in government
GenreSatire

The Apple Cart: A Political Extravaganza is a 1928 play by Bernard Shaw. It is a satirical comedy about several political philosophies which are expounded by the characters, often in lengthy monologues. The plot follows the fictional English King Magnus as he spars with, and ultimately outwits, his Prime Minister, Proteus, and his cabinet, who seek to strip the monarchy of its remaining political influence. Magnus opposes the corporation "Breakages, Limited", which controls politicians and impedes technical progress. Shaw's 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.[1]

The play was completed in December 1928 and first performed in Warsaw (in Polish) the following June. Its English première was at the first Malvern Drama Festival in August 1929.

Background

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Sir Barry Jackson, who had presented and directed the British premiere of Shaw's Back to Methuselah at the Birmingham Repertory Theatre in 1923, grew disillusioned with the commercial theatre, particularly that of the West End, and conceived the idea of founding an out-of-town theatre festival at Malvern, starting in 1928. Shaw was impressed by Jackson's plan and promised that if the Malvern Festival was set up, he would write a new play for it.[2] Having written nothing for the theatre since Saint Joan in 1923, Shaw worried that he might have exhausted his creative powers, but an idea for a new play came to him and, his biographer Michael Holroyd records, he "wrote it with extraordinary ease and swiftness ... In less than eight weeks he had a complete play".[3]

Characters

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  • Pamphilius – The King's private secretary
  • Sempronius – The King's private secretary
  • Bill Boanerges – President of the Board of Trade
  • King Magnus
  • Orinthia – The King's mistress
  • Alice – Princess Royal
  • Joe Proteus – Prime Minister
  • Pliny – Chancellor of the Exchequer
  • Nicobar – Foreign Secretary
  • Crassus – Colonial Secretary
  • Balbus – Home Secretary
  • Amanda – Postmistress General
  • Lysistrata – Powermistress General
  • Vanhattan – American ambassador
  • Queen Jemima

Shaw based King Magnus largely on himself. He modelled the enigmatic and pivotal character Orinthia, the King's mistress, on Mrs Patrick Campbell, the actress who had created the role of Eliza Doolittle in Shaw's Pygmalion.[4]

Productions

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Characters Malvern, 1929[6] Broadway, 1930[7] Haymarket, 1953[15] Haymarket, 1986[5]
Pamphilius Wallace Evennett Thomas A. Braidon Geoffrey Dunn John Scarborough
Sempronius Scott Sunderland Rex O'Malley John Humphrey John Franklyn-Robbins
Boanerges Matthew Boulton Ernest Cossart George Rose Paul Rogers
King Magnus Cedric Hardwicke Tom Powers Noël Coward Peter O'Toole
Orinthia Edith Evans Violet Kemble-Cooper Margaret Leighton Susannah York
Princess Alice Eve Turner Audrey Ridgewell Jennifer Wright Stephanie Lunn
Proteus Charles Carson Claude Rains Laurence Naismith Michael Denison
Pliny Aubrey Mallalieu John Dunn Archibald Batty Geoffrey Keen
Nicobar Clifford Marquand Morris Carnovsky John Moffat Marius Goring
Crassus Julian D'Albie George Graham Peter Bayliss David Waller
Balbus Frank Moore William H. Sams Hugh Manning Brewster Mason
Amanda Dorothy Holmes-Gore Eva Leonard-Boyne Betty Warren Dora Bryan
Lysistrata Eileen Beldon Helen Westley Margaret Rawlings Moira Lister
Vanhattan James Carew Frederick Truesdell Cecil Trouncer Bernard Braden
Queen Jemima Barbara Everest Marjorie Marquis Alexis France Dinah Sheridan

Reception

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The play was enthusiastically received. St John Ervine wrote:

How can I hope to put in a column and a half a fair measure of the brains that are in it? To produce such a piece of high farce, fantastic wisdom, high discourse, at the age of seventy-three, is a feat of which men half the age of Mr Shaw might be envious.[16]

Desmond MacCarthy quoted other reviewers: "Let me say this is one of the most brilliant plays Bernard Shaw has written", and "To-day was a great event in the history of the English theatre".[16] MacCarthy wrote in 1929 that although the characters are caricatures they are recognisably true to life:

King Magnus, unpretentious, subtle and selfless, is not only a real human being, but a creation of Mr Shaw’s moral insight, which is a much more remarkable gift than his faculty for hitting off types. It is that gift which makes him the superb dramatist he is.[17]

In MacCarthy's analysis greatness of mind is not necessarily imposing or magnetic, and in a quiet and unselfish way Magnus shows up the inadequacies of Proteus and his cabinet.[17]

Adaptations

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The play has been adapted for broadcasting, both on radio and on television. BBC radio transmitted a version in January 1947 with Ralph Truman as Magnus, Esmé Percy as Proteus and Margaret Rawlings as Orinthia. [18] A version that omitted the Interlude between Magnus and Orinthia was broadcast in August 1952 with Peter Coke as the King and Ivan Samson as Proteus.[19] A 1980 adaptation featured Peter Barkworth as Magnus, Nigel Stock as Proteus, Elizabeth Spriggs as Lysistrata, Dilys Laye as Amanda and Prunella Scales as Orinthia.[20]

The first version of the play on British television was broadcast by the BBC in July 1957, with Jack Hawkins as Magnus, Willoughby Goddard as Proteus and Moira Lister as Orinthia, in a cast that also featured Hugh Sinclair, George Howe, William Mervyn, Angela Baddeley and Margaret Rawlings.[21] In a BBC television version in 1975, Nigel Davenport played Magnus, Peter Barkworth Proteus, Bill Fraser Boanerges and Helen Mirren Orinthia.[22]

Notes and references

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  1. ^ Shaw, George Bernard. The Apple Cart: A Political Extravaganza.
  2. ^ Holroyd, p. 568
  3. ^ Holroyd, p. 567
  4. ^ Peter Hall Company 2009 Programme - Shaw's The Apple Cart by Robert Warren.
  5. ^ a b Programme, Theatre Royal, Haymarket, 20 February 1986
  6. ^ a b "The Apple Cart", The Stage, 22 August 1929, p. 21
  7. ^ a b "The Apple Cart", Internet Broadway Database. Retrieved 12 April 2025
  8. ^ "The Apple Cart", The Yorkshire Post, 27 September 1935, p. 5
  9. ^ "The Arts", The Stage, 15 August 1946, p. 4
  10. ^ "The Apple Cart", Internet Broadway Database. Retrieved 12 April 2025
  11. ^ "Prospect at Cambridge", The Stage, 13 May 1995, p. 1
  12. ^ Marriott, R. B. "Exhilarating revival of The Apple Cart' at the Mermaid", The Stage, 12 March 1970, p. 13
  13. ^ Blake, Douglas. "The Apple Cart at the Phoenix", The Stage, 17 November 1987, p. 11
  14. ^ "The Apple Cart", What's On Stage", 15 July 2009
  15. ^ "The Apple Cart", The Stage, 23 April 1953, p. 10
  16. ^ a b Quoted in MacCarthy, p. 181
  17. ^ a b MacCarthy, p. 185
  18. ^ "The Apple Cart" (i), BBC Genome. Retrieved 12 April 2025
  19. ^ "The Apple Cart" (ii), BBC Genome. Retrieved 12 April 2025
  20. ^ "The Apple Cart" (iii), BBC Genome. Retrieved 12 April 2025
  21. ^ "The Apple Cart" (iv), BBC Genome. Retrieved 12 April 2025
  22. ^ "The Apple Cart" (v), BBC Genome. Retrieved 12 April 2025
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