The Bernard Shaw Collection - The Memorable TV DVD Review

Helen Mirren, Maggie Smith, Helena Bonham Carter, Nigel Davenport, Prunella Scales, Beryl Reid, Tom Baker, John Gielgud, Lesley-Anne Down, Lynn Redgrave, Robert Powell, Billy Connolly, Patsy Kensit, Simon Callow

WHAT’S IT ABOUT THEN?

Sumptuous is really the only way to describe this 8 disc box set from Roadshow, the Bernard Shaw collection brings us 8 very lavish and star studded plays from the BBC archives, almost all of them unseen since their original broadcast. The plays, and there are ten in total across the 8 discs, range from a 1972 production of The Millionairess (starring Maggie Smith) to a 1989 production of Arms and the Man (featuring Helena Bonham Carter and Patsy Kensit).

Rarely are vintage single plays brought out of the archive so to get ten at once is something of a shock and to have ten of such high quality is even more so.
The set comes in a lavish digipack with illustrated booklet and definitely presses all the buttons marked "buy me".

The ten productions are

THE MAN OF DREAMS
Broadcast in 1981 this hour long comedy is set in northern Italy in 1796 and stars Simon Callow and David Troughton. On the same disc as the below production.

ARMS AND THE MAN
Wonderfully lavish, this 1989 production featured the likes of Helena Bonham Carter, Dinsdale Landen, Kika Markham, Patsy Kensit and Patrick Ryecart. Another period piece this treatise on the nature of love sees a young whose fiance is fighting in Bulgaria having to re-evaluate her thinking when an enemy soldier takes refuge in her bedroom.

THE DEVIL'S DISCIPLE
From 1987 this drama of the American war of independance stars Patrick Stewart and the brilliant Ian Richardson.

MRS WARRENS PROFESSION
One of the earliest plays here, from 1972, stars Coral Browne and Penelope Wilton in a piece that saw Shaw have a go at what he perceived to be the hypocrisy surrounding prostitution.

YOU NEVER CAN TELL
A 1977 production starring Robert Powell, Judy Parfitt and Warren Clarke, quite light hearted Shaw here pokes fun at the absurdities of marriage.

ANDROCLES AND THE LION
Billy Connolly stars in this 1984 production alongside Carry On team stalwart Bernard Bresslaw, a subtle reworking of the traditional fable of Androcles removing the thorn from the lions paw.

PYGMALION
Probably the most well known of all Shaws plays to a modern day audience, this big budget 1973 production stars Lynn Redgrave as flower girl Eliza Doolittle who is taken under the wing of Professor Henry Higgins who makes a bet that he can turn her into a lady.

HEARTBREAK HOUSE
Made in 1977 Heartbreak House stars the legendary Sir John Gielgud and Lesley-Anne Down in a comedy of manners that siught to poke fun at the declining state of the country.

THE MILLIONAIRESS
This wonderful 1972 play stars not just Maggie Smith but also a pre Dr Who Tom Baker, the masterful Charles Gray and Peter Barkworth. The plot sees the highly rich Epifania meeting her match in a lowly Egyptian doctor.

THE APPLE CART
The last production is a Play of the Month from 1975 starring Nigel Davenport and the very sexy Helen Mirren. This comedy drama is set forty years in the future on a day when the British government (led by Davenport) is in crisis.

ANY SPECIAL FEATURES?

No Extras.