SHAW BY WIRELESS.

Press, Volume LXII, Issue 18635, 9 March 1926, Page 13

SHAW BY WIRELESS.

A DRAMA OF "TOMFOOLERY." (from our own correspondent.) LONDON, January 21; Mr Bernard Shaw permitted a, pieco of Ji. : 3 "tomfoolery," produced somo fifteen years ago, to be broadcast the other night. It appears to have l>cen written originally for a private party and took the form, of a piay entitled "Passion, Poison, and Petrifaction; or the Fatal Gazogene." Produced on the atago it might have been extremely amusing, but as a play for broadcasting it was somewhat laboured, despite the effort to bring it up-to-date. Mr Shaw probably does not care one whit what people thought of it, but the critics 6ay he failed in the "tomfool" business, at which hundreds of inferior hands succeed every day, and it was a pity to allow his mistakes and failures to be, broadcast to every listener in tho Kingdom, a large percentage of whom had probably never read a single work of Shaw's. The drama, concerns' a lady who retires to bed. but fully clothed, because she scents murder in the air. Her husband arrives with a knife in readiness to take his revenge, but they ar e interrupted by the lady s lover, who is fresh from a great triumph—the first occasion on which ho has worn the perfect suit of dress clothes. 'lbo lady admires the parti-coloured creation, and this changes the husband's intentions. Ho proceeds to administer poisoned gazogene to his guilty rival. There are loud groans from tho lover indicating abdominal pains, and prolonged discussion. The 'ady transfers her adoration to her own husband, but stipulates that tho cost of this will he tha't she can no longer give him that kind of consideration' for his creature comforts that has been ber custom in tho past. This solicitation for his physical well-being would naturally destroy her romance. Upon hearing this the husband relents, ' and agrees to save the life of the poisoned man, Lirao is the antidote. They rcrapo ihs ceiling down and the lorcc proceeds \o eat it. It is not enough, so they destroy tho plaster cast of tho lady, mis it with •water, and acLminisier it in large closes to the sufferer. A policeman, the landlord,

and a doctor appear, and in duo course a thunderbolt ♦destroys them allj and they aro swept to the sido of tho room to await removal in the morning. Husband and wifa turn to tho lover, btu alas tho water and tho lime within him have made him a solid mass. Ho in dead—ho is petrified, a stattie. He is raised after tremendous effort and s e t up as a permanent statuo in tho room. . All through the play there aro sounds of thunder heard, and from time to time the refrain floats up from tho street, l want- to bo happy," which is mistaken for angels' vyicea singing in Paradise.