Augustus Does His Bit: A True-to-Life Farce
1917
Augustus Does His Bit: A True-to-Life Farce
1917
1917. The Great War grinds on, and in the sleepy town of Little Pifflington, Lord Augustus Highcastle arrives at the Town Hall ready to rally the masses for king and country. There's just one problem: he hasn't the faintest idea what he's doing. Shaw's farce drops us into a world of misplaced documents, bemused clerks, and one very determined lady spy who may or may not be what she seems. Beamish, the long-suffering bureaucrat, watches the proceedings with the weary resignation of a man who has seen too many patriotic gestures go sideways. What follows is a masterful piece of theatrical silliness that somehow captures something profound about power, obligation, and the performing of duty by those least equipped to perform it. Shaw wrote this during the war itself, and the comedy carries an edge that pure entertainment never achieves. The laughter here is sharp, aimed squarely at the comfortable assumption that our leaders know what they're doing. A farce, yes, but one that knows exactly what it's satirizing.
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“You'll never have a quiet world till you knock the patriotism out of the human race.””
— Bernard Shaw
“Shall I turn up the light for you?No, give me deeper darkness. Money is not made in the light.””
— Bernard Shaw
“Captain Shotover: How much does your soul eat?Ellie: Oh, a lot. It eats music and pictures and books and mountains and lakes and beautiful things to wear and nice people to be with.””
— Bernard Shaw
“The natural term of the affection of the human animal for its offspring is six years.””
— Bernard Shaw
“Old men are dangerous: it doesn't matter to them what is going to happen to the world.””
— Bernard Shaw
“We know now that the soul is the body, and the body the soul. They tell us they are different because they want to persuade us that we can keep our souls if we let them make slaves of our bodies.””
— Bernard Shaw
“A man's interest in the world is only the overflow from his interest in himself.””
— Bernard Shaw
“When our relatives are at home, we have to think of all their good points or it would be impossible to endure them. But when they are away, we console ourselves for their absence by dwelling on their vices.””
— Bernard Shaw
“People don't have their virtues and vices in sets: they have them anyhow: all mixed.””
— Bernard Shaw
