It was George Bernard Shaw and Chesterton, not Hitchcock
Thursday, 7th March 2019
George Bernard Shaw as seen by Max Beerbohm
• I WAS very interested in Neil Titley’s account of a meeting of George Bernard Shaw and Alfred Hitchcock, (Georgie Shaw, the Parkway pioneer, Review, February 28).
But the witty exchange (“One look at you Mr Shaw, and I know there is a famine in the land” “One look at you Mr Hitchcock, and I know who caused it”) actually took place between the thin Shaw and the obese GK Chesterton.
Sadly Shaw is forgotten by many of his countrymen/women. In the Royal Free some time ago I was treated by an Irish nurse. I told her that I was reading about George Bernard Shaw. She replied: “The only George Bernard Shaw I know is a pub in Dublin.”
JOHN MACDONALD
Fellows Road, NW3
