Episode Details

George Bernard Shaw understood a century before social media that controversy is currency. He made himself the most quoted man in the English-speaking world by saying outrageous things with absolute conviction, then writing plays sharp enough to justify the attention.

This episode follows Shaw from his impoverished Dublin childhood through five failed novels, his reinvention as a theater critic, and his dominance of the English stage.

• He wrote five unsuccessful novels before pivoting to theater criticism and playwriting
• He is the only person in history to win both the Nobel Prize in Literature and an Academy Award
• He was a committed vegetarian, socialist, and public contrarian for most of his life
• Pygmalion became the basis for My Fair Lady