John Bull's Other Island
John Bull's Other Island | |
---|---|
Written by | George Bernard Shaw |
Date premiered | 1 November 1904 |
Place premiered | Royal Court Theatre |
Original language | English |
Subject | An English businessman charms Irish villagers into mortgaging their homes |
Genre | satirical comedy |
Setting | A village in Ireland |
John Bull's Other Island is a comedy about Ireland, written by George Bernard Shaw in 1904. Shaw himself was born in Dublin, yet this is one of only two plays of his where he thematically returned to his homeland, the other being O'Flaherty V.C. The play was highly successful in its day, but is rarely revived, probably because so much of the dialogue is specific to the politics of the day.
Characters and original cast
- Tom Broadbent – Louis Calvert
- Larry Doyle – J. L. Shine
- Tim Haffigan – Percival Stevens
- Hodson – Nigel Playfair
- Peter Keegan – Harley Granville Barker
- Patsey Farrell – Graham Browne
- Father Dempsey – Charles Daly
- Corney Doyle – F. Cremlin
- Barney Doran – Wilfred Shine
- Matthew Haffigan – A. E. George
- Aunt Judy – Agnes Thomas
- Nora Reilly – Ellen O'Malley
Plot
The play deals with Larry Doyle, originally from Ireland, who has adopted English cultural customs and manners to find his place in England and Tom Broadbent, his English business partner. They are civil engineers who run a firm in London. They go to Roscullen, where Doyle was born, to develop some land.
Doyle has no illusions about Ireland while Broadbent is
Another major character is the defrocked priest Peter (Father) Keegan, the political and temperamental opposite of Broadbent, who becomes suspicious of him upon his arrival and warns the locals against him.
Productions
The play was commissioned by
The play premiered in London at the
Political contexts
As popular as the play was originally, it is not one of Shaw's more revived pieces. Liz Kennedy reviewing a revival in 2004, during the New Labour government of Tony Blair, argued that the play was still relevant: "Shaw's vision from one hundred years ago was a far-seeing one...The drama has especial contemporary resonance in this continued period of political vacuum on our own shores" She particularly praised "Alan Cox, giving an appropriately mannered Blairite performance as Broadbent the Englishman...he might historically be a Liberal, but he sounded very New Labour."[5]
References
- ^ "Court Theatre", The Times, 2 November 1904, p. 6
- ^ Peter Kavanagh, The Story of the Abbey Theatre: From Its Origins in 1899 to the Present, Devin-Adair, New York, 1950, p. 55.
- ^ Violet M. Broad & C. Lewis Broad, Dictionary to the Plays and Novels of Bernard Shaw, A. & C. Black, London, 1929, p. 53
- ^ a b T. F. Evans, George Bernard Shaw, Routledge, 2013, p. 7.
- ^ "Political Drama Set around the Emerald Isle", The News Letter (Belfast, Northern Ireland), 23 September 2004, p.28.