When Bernard Shaw died in late 1950, he was an international literary figure whose dramatic works were sought by the stage, cinema, radio, and television. A spokesperson for the Society of Authors noted that “a day never passes without a performance of some Shaw play being given somewhere in the world.” In 1951 five different Shaw plays appeared on Broadway, while six full-length and eighteen short scripts ran in London. The actors headlining these productions were among the world's most renowned performers, including Laurence Olivier, Vivien Leigh, John Clements, Kay Hammond, Yvonne Mitchell, and Uta Hagen. Shavian drama was so ubiquitous in 1951 that the Shaw estate feared a “debasement of the coinage” and had “for the moment forbidden any further West End productions of Shaw's works.”

One reason for this popularity was (and still is) that actors found in Shaw's energetic, articulate characters attractive vehicles by which to showcase their talents, vehicles with the potential for bravura performances. Basil Langton attested that Shavian drama "offered me a multitude of fascinating, meaty and showy roles to act . . . Man and Superman is a good play, but above all it has the most glorious role any actor can dream of or wish for."