During this period, Gilbert also pushed the boundaries of how far satire could go in the theatre. He collaborated with Gilbert Arthur à Beckett on "The Happy Land" (1873), a political satire (in part, a parody of his own "The Wicked World"), which was briefly banned because of its unflattering caricatures of Gladstone and his ministers. Similarly, "The Realm of Joy" (1873) was set in the lobby of a theatre performing a scandalous play (implied to be the "Happy Land"), with many jokes at the expense of the Lord Chamberlain (the "Lord High Disinfectant", as he's referred to in the play). In "Charity" (1874), however, Gilbert uses the freedom of the stage in a different way: to provide a tightly written critique of the contrasting ways that Victorian society treated men and women who had sex outside of marriage. These works anticipated the 'problem plays' of Shaw and Ibsen.