Fanny's First Play Book

A charming, light social comedy; a satire on suburban middle-class notions of respectability and morality presented as a play-within-a-play. Apparently this was written & rushed into rehearsal quickly as it had to take the stage early after a commercial flop by Ibsen ended its run prematurely. A large part of the comedy is strictly topical - Shaw originally staged this as by "Anonymous", mirroring the fictional playwright, whose identity is kept from the (stage) critics. In the framing play, the critics pontificate about Ibsen, Pinero, Granville Barker and Shaw himself; and apparently the critics themselves were based on real drama critics of the time. The loss of topicality makes the comedy tricky to stage now - as does the somewhat dated morality theme. A pity because the whole thing has a quite light and frothy appeal. This had the longest initial run of any of Shaw's plays.