The Apple Cart: A Political Extravaganza is a 1928 play by George 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, 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.[2]
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.[3] The "Powermistress-General" is said by the biographers of Beatrice Webb to be modelled on Susan Lawrence, an old colleague of Shaw from the Fabian Society.
^Shaw, George Bernard. The Apple Cart: A Political Extravaganza.
^Garrard, Rose (2010). A Malvern Treasury. Garrard Art Publications. p. 147. ISBN 978-1-905795-56-7.
^Peter Hall Company 2009 Programme - Shaw's The Apple Cart by Robert Warren.
TheAppleCart: A Political Extravaganza is a 1928 play by George Bernard Shaw. It is a satirical comedy about several political philosophies which are...
Back to Methuselah Saint Joan TheAppleCart Too True to Be Good On the Rocks The Simpleton of the Unexpected Isles The Millionairess Geneva In Good King...
Eastbourne and Bath. She made her West End debut in TheAppleCart with Noël Coward. Syms appeared in a TV play The Romantic Young Lady. This led to two offers...
Queen and Empress; he also acted at the Malvern Festival in The Millionairess and TheAppleCart and was in the movie Under Secret Orders (1937). Granger...
in two of Shaw's plays: Orinthia in TheAppleCart (1929), and Epifania in The Millionairess (1940) and was in the British premières of two others: Heartbreak...
December 2011). "Long Live TheAppleCart". Kashmir Life. Wani, Riyaz (20 March 2020). "Altaf Bukhari and the business of politics". The Hindu Business Line...
as an actor. His notable appearances included TheAppleCart, Major Barbara, The Philanderer, Arms and the Man, Misalliance, and Heartbreak House with Jessica...
Shaw's TheAppleCart and dramatisations of The Constant Nymph and Pearl S. Buck's novel The Good Earth (as a Chinese farmer). Although he had played the single...
Peggy Orenstein of The New York Times said that she loved Peach but noted that "her peachiness did nothing to upset theapplecart of expectation". She...
The following is a list of works by George Bernard Shaw. The first section shows works in chronological sequence as written, the second tabulates these...
resumed after the war with 1066 and All That, Don Juan in Hell, TheAppleCart and The Moon in the Yellow River with Jack Hawkins. At this point the focus of...
League (February 24, 1930). "The AppleCart – Broadway Play – Original". IBDB. Retrieved January 11, 2022. "TheAppleCart (Broadway, Al Hirschfeld Theatre...
corporation in 1928 play TheAppleCart Breakage-fusion-bridge cycle, a mechanism of chromosomal instability The Breakage of the Sunflower, Iraqi novels...
Sempronius may refer to: Sempronius, the nomen of the Roman gens Sempronia Sempronius, a character in the play TheAppleCart Sempronius, New York Sempronius...
King Arthur (1964) as the Narrator at the Royal Albert Hall, London TheAppleCart (1965) as King Magnus with Barbara Murray at the Cambridge Arts Theatre...
him, TheAppleCart by George Bernard Shaw, with Margaret Leighton as his co-star. To Coward, the Haymarket was "the most perfect theatre in the world"...
in his school's production of the Irish playwright George Bernard Shaw's TheAppleCart. He decided to leave school by the end of 1941 and work as a miner...
eggs[a] Do not throw the baby out with the bathwater[a] Do not try to walk before you can crawl[a] Do not upset theapple-cart[a] Do not wash your dirty...
Pygmalion, Heartbreak House, Major Barbara, The Doctor's Dilemma and TheAppleCart. She appeared in the original Broadway productions of two plays which...
Oxford University Balbus, a character in TheAppleCart by George Bernard Shaw Balbus, a character in the Epistle to Dr Arbuthnot Mixophyes balbus, "Stuttering...