Queen's Theatre, London

Premiered on Bank Holiday Monday. August 5th 1918 and continued to be performed through to mid February 1919. Percy Hutchinson began in the role of Clive Stanton, V.C. and then returned to the role in January 1919.

First public production in London’s West End, by Donald Calthrop (the Everyman Theatre Company), for 29 performances; performed with Shaw’s ‘The Dark Lady of the Sonnets’ and Schnitzler’s ‘A Farewell Supper’ (Mander & Mitchenson, pp. 124, 292). The cast was: Babsy, Marjorie Gabain; Lottie, Mimosa Valentine; Hannah, Edith Harley; Jessie, Henzie Raeburn; Emma, Margaret Barter; Elder Daniels, Harold Scott; Blanco Posnet, Brember Wills; Strapper Kemp, Leslie J. Banks; Feemy Evans, Muriel Pratt; Sherriff Kemp, Felix Aylmer; Foreman of Jury, George G. Carr; Nestor, a Juryman, Richard Bird; The Woman, Hazel Jones; Waggoner Jo, Douglas Jefferies. 'Playgoers who are still in town have now no excuse for missing one of the most remarkable of Mr. Shaw’s works for the theatre, and one which, thanks to the Lord Chamberlain, they have had to wait nearly a dozen years for the opportunity of seeing. It is an admirable little play, as notable for its humour and its dramatic skill as for the unimpeachability of its moral teaching, and it is performed very capably by the Everyman company (Truth, 27 July 1921). ‘… it must be given as a personal opinion that Schnitzler is bad company for Shaw. Preceded by the work of almost any writer, not even excluding Barrie, a Shaw play would preserve its brightness, but preceded by the light-hearted worldliness of Anatol, the philosophic wit of the Irishman is outshone. That, one feels sure, would he the impression of many at the Queen’s in ordinary circumstances. The reason why this is not so seems to be due to Miss Muriel Pratt’s penchant for realism. In “The Farewell Supper” her study of Mimi is extremely clever - but it is not Mimi. Thus, after all, the pitch of “The Dark Lady of the Sonnets” is not queered. And so we come to “The Showing Up of Blanco Posnet,” which also ends with a sermon but as the sermon is part of the play we will make no bones about that, although we suspect that theatrical managers in 2021 will shamelessly cut it. “Crude melodrama,” the author calls the story, though it is not half so crude, and twice as effective, as “Bull-Dog Drummond.” That is, if efficiently performed. But what can happen when Blanco is presented as a temperamental creature, sicklied o’er with the pale cast of habitual thought? That is a fair description of Mr. Brember Wills in the part’ (Illustrated Sporting and Dramatic News, 30 July 1921). ‘Bernard Shaw’s play, “The showing up of Blanco Posnet,” has reached the West End of London after a troublous voyage of a dozen years. It has been received with acclamation, and it is declared of it that the fierce morality that the author breathed into it has kept it a very much more live play than some of his greater works (Chelmsford Chronicle, 5 August 1921). ‘… the great triumph of the company from the Everyman Theatre was their performance of Bernard Shaw’s Showing Up of Blanco Posnet. It could scarcely have been better done. Mr. Brember Wills was extraordinarily good as Blanco Posnet. The man’s ravings against God and Fate; his exasperation in the face of the stupidity of these American pioneers; his half-anger, half-ecstasy, at the knowledge that God at last tricked him into doing an unselfish action - and by this “trick” had converted him to nobility - all these emotions Brember Wills gave with a vividness which was as convincing as reality. Miss Muriel Pratt, too, was excellent as Feemy Evans who, the harlot of the district, was “tricked” by God into committing a good action which, as it were, illuminated the ugliness of her past, just at a time when to glory in that ugliness was the only thing left for her to do if she were to live out boldly the consequences of her conduct’ (The Tatler, 10 August 1921).