Press Cuttings by George Bernard Shaw

 Title: Press Cuttings

Author: George Bernard Shaw (Irish, 1856-1950)
Originally published: 1909
Page count: 35


Dates read: 3/20/21
2021 book goal progress: 9 out of 38
Back to the Classics category: Classic Play



Read my other book reviews for my 2021 goal HERE.


Description on back of book:
A room in the War Office on 1 April 1911. General Mitchener is in a state of considerable anxiety about the number of suffragettes chaining themselves to government buildings. He has had all the railings removed, but is informed by an orderly that another suffragette has padlocked herself to the door scraper. Surprisingly, he has received a letter from the Prime Minister, Balsquith, telling him to release the woman and let her into the building. When he does so, he learns that the suffragette is none other than the Prime Minister himself, disguised as a woman.

First line:
A VOICE OUTSIDE: Votes for women!

Favorite quotes:
PRIME MINISTER BALSQUITH: That is the difference between your job and mine, Mitchener. After twenty years in the army, a man thinks he knows everything. After twenty months in the Cabinet, he knows that he knows nothing.

GENERAL MITCHENER: We learn from history-

PMB: We learn from history that men never learn anything from history.

CAWPILE Rating: Overall - 5.9/10 - ⭐⭐⭐/5
Characters      - 7
Atmosphere   - 5
Writing Style - 6
Plot                - 7
Intrigue          - 5
Logic             - 5
Enjoyment     - 6
What is a CAWPILE Rating?

Review:

This is a hilarious play! It is very short and much of the politics went over my head, but I enjoyed this. The General of the military is opposed to the suffrage movement and is looking forward to meeting with the 2 female leaders of the anti-suffrage movement. Well, it turns out that one of the ladies is against the vote because she thinks it's too weak and that women's real power will come through equal military rights instead. The other lady believes:

"The Salic Law, which forbade women to occupy a throne, is founded on the fact when a woman is on the throne the country is ruled by men, and therefore ruled badly; whereas when a man is on the throne, the country is ruled by women, and therefore ruled well. The suffragettes would degrade women from being rulers to being voters, mere politicians, the drudges of the caucus and the polling booth. We should lose our influence completely under such a state of affairs."

In the end, the general decides to support votes for women because the alternative seems even worse. It gets a bit cooky in the end with a bunch of spitfire engagements, but it really is an enjoyable play.

Now I'm off to read another book... but since a review should be more about the author of the book than about the writer of the blog, I will let George Bernard Shaw have the last words:

GENERAL MITCHENER: When a man has risked his life on eight battlefields, Mrs. Farrell, he has given sufficient proof of his self-control to be excused a little strong language.

MRS. FARREL (chairwoman/secretary to the general): Would you put up with bad language from me because I've risked my life eight times in childbed?

GM: My dear Mrs. Farrell, you surely would not compare a risk of that harmless domestic kind to the fearful risks of the battlefield?

MF: I wouldn't compare risks run to bear living people into the world to risks run to blow them out of it. A mother's risk is jooty: a soldier's nothin but divilmint.

GM (nettled): Let me tell you, Mrs. Farrell, that if the men did not fight, the women would have to fight themselves. We spare you all that, at all events.

MF: You can't help yourselves. If three-quarters of you was killed we could replace you with the help of the other quarter. If three-quarters of us was killed, how many people would there be in England in another generation? If it wasn't for that, the man d put the fightin on us just as they put all the other dhrudgery. What would YOU do if we was all kilt? Would you go to bed and have twins?

GM: Really, Mrs. Farrell, you must discuss these questions with a medical man. You make me blush, positively.