Quiz: How well do you know Shaw?

As George Bernard Shaw's Pygmalion hits the West End, test your knowledge of the great playwright

A Shaw hit ... Kara Tointon (centre) as Eliza Doolittle in Pygmalion at the Garrick theatre, London. Photograph: Tristram Kenton

1. 1.Shaw was born on 26 July 1856. His middle-class childhood in Dublin was marked by many problems, especially his father’s alcoholism. What did his mother Bessie finally do when her son was a teenager?
   1. She killed his father during an argument, by pushing him out of a window.
   2. She ran off to London with her singing teacher.
   3. She had all three of her children legally adopted by their grandparents.
   4. She boarded the early morning boat to Canada without telling anyone.
2. 2.Shaw began his writing career with five novels, none of which were published until later. Which of these is not a storyline from one of them?
   1. A boxer and a sophisticated woman fall in love and marry, only to discover that he comes from an aristocratic family and is the heir to a great fortune.
   2. A wealthy gentleman disguises himself as a simple workman in order to further the socialist cause.
   3. An upper-class woman marries a self-made industrialist, but then leaves him for someone posher.
   4. A young baronet takes sexual advantage of a simple village girl, but then falls in love with her just before she dies.
3. 3.To what experience did Shaw attribute his conversion to socialism, which became the dominant focus of his writing life?
   1. A lecture by the American political economist Henry George.
   2. Meeting Karl Marx at that lecture.
   3. His first visit, as a sketch-writer, to the House of Lords.
   4. His time distributing payments to farmers while working for his father’s grain business.
4. 4.Seldom precious about his work, Shaw once said that a baby could have written the central speech in Mrs Warren’s Profession. Which French author did he admit stealing the story from?
   1. Guy de Maupassant
   2. Emile Zola
   3. Honoré de Balzac
   4. Gustave Flaubert
5. 5.Now rarely seen, the play that made Shaw’s name in Britain was John Bull’s Other Island, a comedy about the Irish question that premiered at the Royal Court in 1904. What rumour about the play helped make it such a hit?
   1. That King Edward VII had personally contributed several lines of dialogue.
   2. That when King Edward VII watched the play, he laughed so hard he broke his chair.
   3. That the play had actually been written by Oscar Wilde.
   4. That the central character was closely based on the prime minister, Arthur Balfour.
6. 6.Shaw's first financial success as a playwright came with his eighth play, The Devil’s Disciple, which was a big hit in America. What is it about?
   1. An American pilgrim who fails to convert the natives to Christianity.
   2. The quarrels between two church sects during the American civil war.
   3. The attempted hanging of a rebel during the American war of independence.
   4. A prince who pretends to be unpleasant to his courtiers in order to find out who he can trust.
7. 7.The part of the flowergirl Eliza Doolittle in Pygmalion was written for Shaw’s friend, the actor Mrs Patrick Campbell (née Beatrice Tanner). Why was she a strange choice?
   1. She was already 49 years old.
   2. She had stopped acting 12 years previously.
   3. She herself had once been a flowergirl, which embarrassed her.
   4. She had not spoken to Shaw for five years, after a falling out.
8. 8.Shaw was susceptible to fads. Which of the following did he not do?
   1. Wearing no fabric but wool.
   2. Writing almost exclusively inside a revolving hut in his back garden.
   3. Drinking his own urine.
   4. Staunchly opposing vaccination.
9. 9.Shaw received many honours during his lifetime, but he is still the only person in history to have achieved one particular distinction. Which is it?
   1. He won a Nobel prize in two different categories.
   2. He won both a Nobel prize and an Oscar.
   3. He won both a Nobel prize and accepted a knighthood.
   4. He turned down a Nobel prize, and subsequently accepted another one.
10. 10.For which of these purposes did Shaw bequeath a large sum of money in his will?
    1. To promote selective breeding among the poor.
    2. To start a bird sanctuary in his name.
    3. To create and promote a new alphabet.
    4. To lobby for the abolition of British summer time.