Major Barbara works tirelessly for the poor at a Salvation Army shelter until a large but morally dubious donation is welcomed from her estranged father, a millionaire weapons manufacturer. But when she visits the factory itself, the well-fed workers in their thriving model town make a devastating case for arms trade profits and a whole new set of ideals.

Nothing is ever done in this world until men are prepared to kill one another if it is not done.

The National’s recent production of Saint Joan (Best Revival, Laurence Oliver Awards 2008) suggested that Shaw may be our most provocative contemporary playwright.

Simon Russell Beale plays the millionaire, Undershaft, in this radical state-of-the-nation play which confronts the big questions with brutal panache.

The greatest of evils and the worst of crimes is poverty… our first duty – a duty to which every other consideration should be sacrificed – is not to be poor.