Ticket to Milford Haven 
David Edgar
As anyone who has directed a remake of King Kong knows, revisiting classics is a perilous business. However much you claim to stand on the shoulders of the mighty beast, you still risk ending up, like Fay Wray, squeezed in its paw. A.M. Gibbs spends most of the introduction to Bernard Shaw: A Life justifying his decision to return to a very well-ploughed furrow. But by citing no less than four previous biographies by the end of page two, he is being consciously naive. He knows perfectly well he will be judged principally against Michael Holroyd, whose multi-volume Shaw is one of the longest, most detailed, comprehensive and highly praised biographies of the 20th century.
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David Edgar is currently adapting Julian Barnes’s Arthur and George for the stage and writing a new play for Out of Joint.
Other articles by this contributor:
Vindicated! · the Angry Brigade
What are we telling the nation? · Thoughts about the BBC
Back to Reality · Arthur Miller and the Oblong Blur
Stalking Out · After John Osborne
Each Scene for Itself · The Brecht Centenary
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