You Never Can Tell
Encyclopedia
You Never Can Tell is an 1897 four-act play by G. Bernard Shaw
that debuted at the Royalty Theatre
. It was published as part of a volume of Shaw's plays entitled Plays Pleasant.
The play was revived at the Colisuem Theatre in Aberystwyth, Wales, in June 2011. The play had been performed there in 1911 exactly a century earlier.
The play is set in a seaside town and tells the story of Mrs Clandon and her three children, Dolly, Phillip and Gloria, who have just returned to England after an eighteen-year stay in Madeira
.
The children have no idea who their father is and, through a comedy of errors
, end up inviting him to a family lunch. At the same time a dentist named Mr Valentine has fallen in love with the eldest daughter, Gloria. However, Gloria considers herself a modern woman and claims to have no interest in love or marriage.
The play continues with a comedy of errors and confused identities, with the friendly and wise waiter, Walter (most commonly referred to by the characters as "William," because Dolly thinks he resembles Mr Shakespeare), dispensing his wisdom with the titular phrase "You Never Can Tell."
Place: An English seaside resort
Act I: A dentist's office
Act II: The Terrace of The Marine Hotel
Act III: The Clandons sitting room at The Marine Hotel
Act IV: The Clandons sitting room at The Marine Hotel - Later at Night
George Bernard Shaw
George Bernard Shaw was an Irish playwright and a co-founder of the London School of Economics. Although his first profitable writing was music and literary criticism, in which capacity he wrote many highly articulate pieces of journalism, his main talent was for drama, and he wrote more than 60...
that debuted at the Royalty Theatre
Royalty Theatre
The Royalty Theatre was a small London theatre situated at 73 Dean Street, Soho and opened on 25 May 1840 as Miss Kelly's Theatre and Dramatic School and finally closed to the public in 1938. The architect was Samuel Beazley, a resident in Soho Square, who also designed St James's Theatre, among...
. It was published as part of a volume of Shaw's plays entitled Plays Pleasant.
The play was revived at the Colisuem Theatre in Aberystwyth, Wales, in June 2011. The play had been performed there in 1911 exactly a century earlier.
The play is set in a seaside town and tells the story of Mrs Clandon and her three children, Dolly, Phillip and Gloria, who have just returned to England after an eighteen-year stay in Madeira
Madeira
Madeira is a Portuguese archipelago that lies between and , just under 400 km north of Tenerife, Canary Islands, in the north Atlantic Ocean and an outermost region of the European Union...
.
The children have no idea who their father is and, through a comedy of errors
Comedy of errors
A comedy of errors is a narrative work that is light and often humorous or satirical in tone, in which the action usually features a series of comic instances of mistaken identity, and which typically culminates in a happy resolution of the thematic conflict.-Satire and farce:A slight variation of...
, end up inviting him to a family lunch. At the same time a dentist named Mr Valentine has fallen in love with the eldest daughter, Gloria. However, Gloria considers herself a modern woman and claims to have no interest in love or marriage.
The play continues with a comedy of errors and confused identities, with the friendly and wise waiter, Walter (most commonly referred to by the characters as "William," because Dolly thinks he resembles Mr Shakespeare), dispensing his wisdom with the titular phrase "You Never Can Tell."
Characters
- Dolly
- Philip
- Mr, or Dr, Valentine, the dentist
- Gloria
- Mrs Clandon, the mother
- Mr Crampton, the landlord and father
- Walter, the waiter
- McComas
- Bohun
- The parlor maid
- Jo, another waiter
Setting
Time: One Day in August 1896Place: An English seaside resort
Act I: A dentist's office
Act II: The Terrace of The Marine Hotel
Act III: The Clandons sitting room at The Marine Hotel
Act IV: The Clandons sitting room at The Marine Hotel - Later at Night