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
Galatea, or Pygmalion Reversed he seems never tired of gazing upon his own loveliness, and of breaking forth into ecstatic song with, "Just look at that and look at this." Pygmalion is a classical masher. He "mashes" not only Galatea who made him, but Myrine and Daphne, who, bewitched by his manly beauty, give the "cold shoulder" to their respective and respectable husbands, Cyniscos, Leucippe and Chrysos, who, being thereby enraged, resolve not to mash, but to smash Pygmalion and to begin by chipping him. This treatment of course soon inclines Pygmalion to return to his old position, and then peace and happiness are