The Shaw Festival
London
To mark the centenary of Bernard Shaw receiving the Nobel Prize in Literature, The Irish Cultural Centre (ICC), in partnership with the The Shaw Society, presents The Inaugural Shaw Festival, London, Friday 10th –Sunday 12th July 2026. The Festival celebrates Shaw’s extraordinary legacy as playwright, critic, satirist and public intellectual.
Shaw transformed modern drama into a vehicle for ideas as much as entertainment. The Nobel Prize recognised not only his literary achievement, but the boldness and originality of his ideas. He reimagined the stage as a theatre of ideas, inviting audiences to think for themselves.
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This Inaugural programme places a particular focus one of the most striking and enduring features of his work: his portrayal of women, and it looks at men’s relationships with the strong women in their lives. Writing in a time when female characters were often confined with tight conventions, Shaw created women of intelligence, independence, and moral authority. Shavian women challenge, provoke, and ultimately reshape the worlds they inhabit.
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At the centre of The Shaw Festival, is a production of Candida a witty romantic comedy that quietly but powerfully overturns traditional ideas of love and marriage. The play continues to have relevance to contemporary conversations about gender, identity, and autonomy. In Candida, Shaw presents a woman who is neither idealised nor subordinate, but perceptive, self-possessed, and decisive. Performed by The Rumpus Theatre Company the play will transfer to Shaw's Corner -National Trust on the 24th and 25th July to celebrate 170th Shaw's Birthday.
Across three days, the rest of the programme brings together a mix of film and lectures, offering audiences a rich and varied way to engage with Shaw his ideas and humour. The welcoming and intimate surroundings of the Irish Cultural Centre, will provide a fitting setting to reflect both Shaw’s Irish heritage and the enduring international cultural significance of the Dublin-born playwright, often regarded as one of the most influential playwrights in the English language, after Shakespeare.
The Shaw Festival London 2026 Programme
An evening of two Films about Shaw + Q&A
Fri 10 July 2026
Doors: 7.30pm; Starts: 8pm
Tickets: £10
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The evening will be opened by Maureen Clark-Darby, Chair of The Shaw Society.
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“An Interview with Sir Michael Holroyd” on Film
Directed by Neil Titley: Length 30mins: Year 1988.
Michael Holroyd is seen in-conversation with Neil Titley. Sir Michael Holroyd is famed for his biographies, especially that of George Bernard Shaw. His distinguished career has included becoming President of The Royal Society of Literature, President of The Shaw Society and Honorary Patron of The Oscar Wilde Society. His awards include the 2001 Heywood Hill Literary Prize and the 2005 David Cohen Prize for literature. In 2006, he was awarded The Golden PEN Award for “a Lifetime’s Distinguished Service to Literature” In 2007 he received a Knighthood. This interview is studded with his fascinating insights into the great writer and dramatist, George Bernard Shaw.
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‘Shaw’s Corner’ – Film
Written by Neil Titley: Performed by Dermot Walsh
Directed by Antony Sellers; Televised in 1988: Length 45mins
This one man show was adapted from the writings of G.B Shaw by Neil Titley; it was created in 1987 and first performed as a stage play by the poet and actor Malcolm Wroe. This Arts Channel TV production stars the great Irish Abbey Theatre actor and movie star Dermot Walsh, (1924- 2002) who plays Shaw at the end of his life. Well known in the title role of the 1960s series ‘Richard the Lionheart’, in 1949, Walsh appeared in the first production of ‘Buoyant Billions’, overseen by G.B Shaw himself. This powerful and moving film was eventually broadcast in over twenty countries.
George Bernard Shaw and Feminism
A Lecture by Murray Rosenthal
Sun 12 July 2026
Doors: 11.30am; Starts: 12pm
Tickets: £5
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This lecture explores the development of George Bernard Shaw’s feminist ideas, beginning with an examination of his early life and the influential women who shaped his perspectives. It traces how these experiences informed his progressive views on women and their roles in society.
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The discussion will highlight key examples from Shaw’s early and middle plays, illustrating his challenge to traditional gender norms and his advocacy for greater independence and equality for women.
In addition, the lecture will feature his notable correspondence with Mrs. Patrick Campbell, shedding light on his personal views on relationships, gender dynamics, and the interplay between life and art.
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Murray Rosenthal is Vice-Chair of the Shaw Society he has produced plays on Broadway and the UK. He best known in the UK for producing the operatic adaptations of the works of George Bernard Shaw, composed by his partner, the composer Philip Hagemann. Hagemann has set several Shaw plays to music: The Music Cure, The Dark Lady of the Sonnets, The Six of Calais and Passion, Poison and Petrification.
In the UK, Hagemann’s music and Rosenthal's producing has ben showcased in partnership with UK based Pegasus Opera.
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“Candida: An Oedipal Crisis” by Dr. Audrey McNamara
Sat 11 July 2026
Doors: 4.30pm; Starts: 5pm
Tickets: £5
In what promises to be a gripping lecture, Dr. Audrey McNamara - University College Dublin (UCD), a leading expert on Shaw, will examine Shaw’s lasting influence and delve into the central themes of his 1894 play Candida.
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In his works, the celebrated playwright and critic George Bernard Shaw revealed the darker sides of Victorian society, including slum landlordism, infidelity, and prostitution. Focusing on the intricate dynamics of love, marriage, and power, Dr McNamara will reveal how Shaw challenged traditional Victorian ideas about romance and gender roles, offering a thought-provoking exploration of human relationships.
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Dr McNamara is Vice-President of the International Shaw Society (ISS) and has written extensively on Shaw including monograph Bernard Shaw: From Womanhood to Nationhood – The Irish Shaw published by Palgrave Macmillan, essays on the work of Bernard Shaw, Conor McPherson, Enda Walsh and Benjamin Black. She wrote the programme notes for the Abbey Theatre’s production of Pygmalion (2014), and was a plenary speaker for the National Theatre of London’s production of Man and Superman. She was guest co-editor with Nelson O’Ceallaigh Ritschel for Shaw 36.1: Shaw and Money (Penn State University Press 2016) and Shaw and Modern Ireland (Palgrave, 2017).
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‘Shakes Versus Shav’ by Bernard Shaw, Starring Colm Meaney and Derek Jacobi. Plus Q&A
Sun 12 July 2026
Doors: 6.30pm; Starts: 7pm
Tickets: FREE (optional £5 Donation)
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To mark the closing of the first Shaw Festival London, the ICC is delighted to screen the short animated film Shakes Versus Shav Spoiler alert – the directors will also be bringing the puppets Shakes and Shav, used in the film with them, so you can meet them up close!!!
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Irish documentary maker Gerry Hoban together with Dublin based puppeteer Damian Farrell have co-produced this stunning film based on George Bernard Shaw’s very last published play Shakes Versus Shav – a puppet play first seen at the Malvern Festival in 1949. This new madcap puppet film production features the voices of Colm Meaney as George Bernard Shaw, and Derek Jacobi as William Shakespeare and is was released to coincide with the 75th anniversary of the play’s original publication.
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‘Winner Best Comedy’ Bloomsday Film Festival Dublin.
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Silver Winner for ‘Best Literature Short’. Portland Festival of Cinema, Animation & Technology.
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Silver Winner for ‘Outstanding Cultural Contribution In A Short’. Portland Festival of Cinema, Animation & Technology.
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Bernard Shaw wrote Shakes Vs Shav barely a year before he died in 1950 at the grand old age of 94, ‘Shakes Versus Shav’ was a final opportunity for the great GBS to celebrate his work and legacy, while taking a sly swipe at what he saw as Shakespeare’s overblown reputation. The film is true to Shaw’s original play: both funny and poignant, with laugh out loud slapstick moments, flashes of genuine drama and scathing wit. It’s a fresh and fitting tribute to two of the greatest writers in the English language … with strings attached.
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‘Shakes Versus Shav’ is co-directed by puppeteer Damian Farrell (Star Wars, Jurassic World, Dark Crystal) and documentary-maker Gerry Hoban. It grew out of a previous collaboration between the two while working with Gabriel Byrne on the IFTA Award-winning documentary about George Bernard Shaw, “My Astonishing Self”.
‘Shakes Versus Shav’ has been produced by Damian Farrell, Elaine Gallagher and Martha Moloney for Caboom, and was funded by Screen Ireland/Fís Éireann, along with RTÉ, Coimisiún na Meán and Section 481.
Candida by Bernard Shaw
Rumpus Theatre Company presents the delightful romantic comedy Candida by George Bernard Shaw
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Sat 11 July - Sun 12 July 2026
Saturday- Doors: 7pm; Starts: 7:30pm | Sunday- Doors: 2pm; Starts 2:30pm
Tickets: £20 / £18 (concession)
One woman, two men, an eternal triangle of exuberant personalities … but which way will the worldly-wise Candida jump? To her mature, idealistic clergyman husband, who believes all is well with his world, until he finds it shattered to its very foundations; or to the young, impulsive Bohemian poet, who is convinced that only he truly understands the woman he worships, and that all conventions should be thrown to the wind! Add into the mix the clergyman’s secretary, secretly in love with her employer, a curate also devoted to his superior, and Candida’s somewhat rough-and-ready capitalist father, the polar opposite of his proselytizing son-in-law, and you have the perfect ingredients for an exhilarating evening of love and wit!
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Directed by John Goodrum
Cast: Sarah Wynne Kordas, David Gilbrook, David Martin, John Goodrum, Karen Henson, Pavan Marue,
This production is generously sponsored by The Shaw Society
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Following the performance there will be a Q&A with Director John Goodrum and members of the cast.