Ed Ranks Bernard Shaw Plays by What He Assumes they are About

Santa?

Irish playwright George Bernard Shaw wrote 29 full-length plays and many more short ones. I have read none of them. This is a ranking of all 29 full-length plays by what I assume they must be probably about.

29. Caesar and Cleopatra - Just Shakespeare's play Antony and Cleopatra which Shaw hoped to pass off as his own. He changed all the "thees" and "thous" into more modern words, and swapped out Antony for Caesar, thinking that nobody would even notice.

28. In Good King Charles's Golden Days - A play about R. Kelly peeing on Charles when he was a 14-year old. Universally reviled as "gross."

27. On the Rocks - A three-act structured play with all three parts simply being about a man sitting around in The Brazen Head pub in Dublin and drinking a Powers Whiskey. On the rocks. Obviously.

26. Major Barbara - Shaw's ode to the eighth song on Aerosmith's Classics Live I album.

25. The Simpleton of the Unexpected Isles - A play Shaw wrote about your mom.

24.  Misalliance - A farcical story about two global world powers teaming up to have a wacky alliance that made no sense. One was a fiercely bigoted country that believed its own people were the proud master race and the other side was a group of expansionist Asians. Everyone laughed heartily at how hilariously impossible the concept was because this was 1910.

23.  Fanny's First Play - An X-rated play about the vulva because that's what that term means over there on those crazy islands.

22. Geneva - A play, somewhat confusingly, all about Vienna, Austria.

21. Heartbreak House - About a small house in Vermont that a lonely suicidal man jumped out of. The house eventually became a bed and breakfast and was given the name "Heartbreak Hotel," inspiring the Elvis song of the same name.

20. Mrs Warren's Profession - About a married prostitute.*

19. You Never Can Tell - About a mute man who witnesses a murder but is also really bad at writing and sign language. Eventually he does learn sign language and he does tell. What a twist!

18.  Buoyant Billions - A play about a group of lifeguards including several females who had bosoms so big that it helped them stay afloat. Later adapted into the TV show "Baywatch."

17. Back to Methuselah - The thrilling sequel to Methuselah, Shaw's great lost play that was eaten by his dog, Skittles.

16. Widowers' Houses - In a small town in rural County Cork, the houses of a number of Irish widows are haunted by the souls of their dead husbands. Why? Because they were all MURDERED!!!

Munthe liked Revolutionary War cosplay.

15. The Devil's Disciple - A scathing play about Swedish-born physician and psychiatrist Axel Munthe, whom Shaw considered a personal rival due to his wife Charlotte's previous romance with him.

14. The Doctor's Dilemma - What will the Doctor do when he's forced between saving Romana and saving K-9? Stay tuned to BBC 1, this Saturday night.

13.  Captain Brassbound's Conversion - A six-hour long play with no intermissions that is simply a stream-of-consciousness retelling of this one time Shaw had a conversation with some guy named Captain Brassbound about the stunning defeat of the British troops by the Boers at Ladysmith, in the  Colony of Natal (modern day South Africa).

12.  Androcles and the Lion - Buddy comedy about a Spartan warrior who befriended the Lion he was supposed to face in gladiatorial combat. The two go on zany adventures together throughout the Peloponnese.

11. Too True to Be Good - A semi-autobiographical play about the time Shaw thought he fell in love with the most beautiful woman in the world, only to eventually realize that she was actually Henry Hyndman, founder of the Social Democratic Federation, playing a sneaky trick on him. The names were changed so that Shaw's character is referred to as "Peter" and Hyndman's character is named (by total coincidence) "J. Jonah Jameson, editor-in-chief of the Daily Bugle, as portrayed by J.K. Simmons" (usually just abbreviated in the play as "JJJEiCotDBapbJKS").

10. Arms and the Man - About a man whose arms go crazy on their own and start a killing spree. The 1999 Jessica Alba/Seth Green film "Idle Hands" was based on this play. 

9.  Man and Superman - Existentialist drama that ponders whether Superman is really Clark Kent in disguise or if Clark Kent is Superman in disguise. Which is the mask and which is the true face? Could it be both? Could it be neither? Can one exist without the other?

8. Getting Married - A tragedy about the horrible end of two people's lives.

7. The Philanderer - A play that you think is a hilarious roaring sex comedy until the last act, when it suddenly goes dark and the main character dies of neurosyphilis because Penicillin was still 35 years away from being discovered when this was written in 1893.

6. The Apple Cart - The story of the hustle and bustle of the Iveagh Market - but told from the perspective of an apple cart that is wheeled in down Francis Street every day.

5. John Bull's Other Island - Millionaire playboy Johnathan "Bull" Bullick is famous for having a mansion on one island. But what is on his other island? It's a mystery and a group of four young people and their pet dog attempt to find out. Later adapted into the cartoon "Scooby Doo."

4. Candida - About a moose who goes on crazy sugar-crazed adventure after eating the entire contents of the trash can behind a Tim Hortons.

3. The Millionairess - Evelyn Davenport-Smythe's rich father, Lord Davenport-Smythe III, dies and she becomes Lady Davenport. Along with the title, as his only child she inherits his fortune of millions. While she was previously disregarded by men for being too homely, now she finds herself surrounded by eight different suitors. But only one of them loves her for who she truly is instead of just being after her riches. Will she be able to figure out the man who really loves her before it's too late?

Flag for Unsportsmanlike Conduct.
15-Yard Penalty.

2. Saint Joan - Sarcastically-titled play about his next door neighbor, Molly, an opium addict who was convinced that she was Joan of Arc. She marches through Dublin demanding to have an audience with the long-dead Charles Valois, Dauphin of France.*

1. Pygmalion - His most famous work because it was eventually adapted by screenwriter Jay Huguely into the Magnum, P.I. episode "Professor Jonathan Higgins" (aired January 10, 1985) where Higgins desperately tries to turn his punk rock-loving distant cousin into a high society woman so that she can marry the heir to a local socialite.

*Note, these are the only two I even got close to right.