Sebastian Shaw (actor) - Writing Career

Writing Career

Shaw wrote Take a Life, his first play, in 1961. He directed a production of the show at London's Mermaid Theatre, where he also played the lead role of the Detective. That same year he played two lead roles in George Bernard Shaw plays at the Dublin Theatre Festival: Mrs. Warren's Profession and Candida. Around this time, he also wrote an outline for a television comedy series about four girls sharing a flat, inspired by his real-life daughter, who was in her early twenties and living in a flat with other girls her age. The series was submitted to the Granada Television company, which expressed interest in the show and said it was one of two under consideration for television. The company ultimately chose the other show, the long-running British soap opera Coronation Street.

Shaw agreed to take certain roles only on the condition that he have complete freedom to rewrite his dialogue. When he appeared in It Happened Here, a 1966 World War II film, he wrote many of his own lines, which the filmmakers later said "gave his dialogue an individual slant which enhanced his performance". He also helped in other aspects of the filmmaking, including casting; he introduced the filmmakers to Fiona Leland, who would be cast as Shaw's wife in It Happened Here. He wrote other plays, including The Ship's Bell, The Cliff Walk, The Glass Maze and Cul de Sac. He also wrote Poems, a collection of his personal poetry, which saw a limited print of 300 editions by publisher Exeter University.

Shaw wrote The Christening, his only novel, in 1975. It centres around Miles Madgwick, who believes that he is bisexual but is too timid to find out through physical intercourse, so he instead describes his most intimate thoughts in his diary. He then meets a married woman named Alice and her son, Rodney; he comes to identify with Rodney's childhood innocence, and in Alice sees a symbol both of his mother and a heterosexual lover. Alice starts to tire of her husband and grow fonder of Madgwick, who experiences mixed emotions in his continued interactions with her and Rodney. One night, Rodney stays overnight at Madgwick's house and, when he takes the boy home in a taxicab, the driver observes their strange behaviour and accuses Madgwick of being a pederast. When Alice asks Madgwick to become the godfather to her new child, the driver threatens to expose Madgwick, creating a conflict between losing his first feelings of intimacy with others or facing humiliation and ridicule at the driver's exposure.

A description in the book cover flap reads, "In this tender, sensitive and blackly comic novel, Sebastian Shaw, the distinguished Shakespearean actor, explores areas of sexual and emotional encounter that are rarely seen and, unfortunately, too rarely understood." Shaw originally planned to call the novel The Godfather, but later said he was glad he did not due to the popularity of Mario Puzo's book of that name. He was said to have been working on another novel shortly after The Christening was completed, but no others were ever published.