Performance practice as research: Perspectives from a small Island

Abstract

The wry wit of that final judgment barely disguises a deep disdain reaching well beyond the virtuous cuisine of a man who 30 years later, in 1926, was to win a Nobel Prize. Twenty-four years later, within a month of G. B. Shaw’s death, the philosopher also received the Swedish accolade. The biking reminiscence was written in the mid-1950s, 60 years after the crash that had the philosopher still troubled enough to ironically exaggerate the likely Shavian flight-path. Their age difference at the time no doubt added an anxious twist, with Shaw at 40 being 16 years older than his riding companion. But what to make of the pantomime that followed the accident, each station stop the scene of a repetitive window-framed put-down? At this time he and I were involved in a bicycle accident, which I feared for a moment might have brought his career to a premature end. He was only just learning to ride a bicycle, and he ran into my machine with such force that he was hurled through the air and landed on his back twenty-feet from the place of the collision. However, he got up completely unhurt and continued his ride. Whereas my bicycle was smashed, and I had to return by train. It was a very slow train, and at every station Shaw with his bicycle appeared on the platform, put his head into the carriage and jeered. I suspect he regarded the whole incident as proof of the virtues of vegetarianism.