Galatea, or Pygmalion Reversed Hollingshead called himself a "licensed dealer in legs, short skirts, French adaptations, Shakespeare, taste and musical glasses." In 1886, Hollingshead ceded the management of the theatre to George Edwardes, whom he had hired in 1885. Nellie Farren, as the theatre's "principal boy", and Fred Leslie starred at the Gaiety for over 20 years. In the early 1890s, as burlesque went out of fashion, Edwardes changed the focus of the theatre from musical burlesque to the new genre of Edwardian musical comedy. "Galatea or Pygmalion Re-Versed" is a parody of W.S. Gilbert's blank verse romantic play "Pygmalion and Galatea". "The Morning
Pygmalion and Galatea (1898 film) between the on-screen artist (played by Méliès) attempting to create a permanent work of art, and the off-screen filmmaker (also Méliès) playing magical tricks on him: "Even Pygmalion, that rare soul whose encounter with a living statue ends happily, is in Méliès's reinterpretation confronted with a Galatea who refuses to be contained." Gaby Wood called "Pygmalion and Galatea" "a perfect metaphor for the magic of moving film. Everything that was wrapped up in the medium's early days is there: the desires, the fears, the superstitions, the power and the hysterical zaniness of its first jagged steps." Pygmalion and Galatea (1898