Heartbreak House by Bernard Shaw | Gielgud, Phillips, Murray (BBC Play of the Month 1977)

A 1977 BBC adaptation play written by Bernard Shaw, directed by Cedric Messina, starring John Gielgud as Shotover, Barbara Murray as Ariadne and Siân Phillips as Hesione. Click on CC for English subtitles.

"Heartbreak House: A Fantasia in the Russian Manner on English Themes" is a play written by Bernard Shaw during the First World War, published in 1919 and first performed in November 1920 at the Garrick Theatre, New York, followed by a West End production the following year.

The play reflects Shaw's disillusion with post-war Britain. It contrasts cultured but self-absorbed and politically irresponsible people on the one hand and aggressive philistines on the other. Heartbreak House contains a self-mocking depiction of Shaw himself in the central character, Captain Shotover.

On the eve of World War I, Ellie Dunn, her father, and her fiancé are invited to one of Hesione Hushabye's infamous dinner parties. Unfortunately, her fiancé is a scoundrel, her father's a bumbling prig, and she's actually in love with Hector, Hesione's husband. This bold mix of farce and tragedy lampoons British society as it blithely sinks toward disaster.

Cast & Characters:
Captain Shotover: John Gielgud
Hesione Hushabye: Sian Phillips
Lady Utterword: Barbara Murray
Hector Hushabye: Daniel Massey
Ellie Dunn: Lesley-Anne Down
Mangan: David Waller
Randall Utterword: Donald Pickering
Mazzini Dunn: Richard Pearson
Burglar: Barry Jackson
Nurse Guinness: Joyce Grant