George Bernard Shaw at Whitehall Court. During the first decade of the twentieth century, Shaw secured a firm reputation as a playwright. In 1904 J. E. Vedrenne and Harley Granville-Barker established a company at the Royal Court Theatre in Sloane Square, Chelsea to present modern drama. Over the next five years they staged fourteen of Shaw's plays. The first, "John Bull's Other Island", a comedy about an Englishman in Ireland, attracted leading politicians and was seen by Edward VII, who laughed so much that he broke his chair. The play was withheld from Dublin's Abbey Theatre, for fear of the affront it might
Irish Literary Theatre Irish Literary Theatre W. B. Yeats, Lady Gregory and Edward Martyn published a "Manifesto for Irish Literary Theatre" in 1897, in which they proclaimed their intention of establishing a national theatre for Ireland. The Irish Literary Theatre was founded by Yeats, Lady Gregory, George Moore and Edward Martyn in Dublin, Ireland, in 1899. It proposed to give performances in Dublin of Irish plays by Irish authors. In 1899 Lady Gregory secured a temporary licence for a play to be given at the Antient Concert Rooms in Great Brunswick St in Dublin, and so enabled the Irish Literary Theatre to give