very interesting. what shaw was responding to was all the good novels written in the victorian era with horrible forced endings. you may notice that almost any 3-volume novel you read from the era follows the story of one or more set of characters, mixes them up in all kinds of ordeals and then in the final volume, because this is what the people wanted, construes them into some overly romantic forced ending. 'happy endings to misfit all stories." it ruined a lot of otherwise excellent novels.
the reason why the original ending works so well is because it does NOT give this epilogue, the future is left completely open. the finality of the musical version betrays the exact sentiment that shaw expressed with his comment on misfitted overly romantic endings. in fact, this musical sort of reminds me of those novels, because i love the whole thing up until the final 20 minutes, at which point i usually turn off my television.
and yes, victorian london was all about society, unfortunately, but if you read some of shaws other plays for example major barbara, it is clear that shaw was critical of this system of aristocracy (which disintegrated soon after the turn of the century)
so anyway, my point is just that maybe we've sort of lost sight of the point of the whole story when it was changed in the 60s, its a problematic message in my opinion (i would know, i was brought up on it as a little girl, and subsequently had to re-assess my values as i got older, and was greatly dissappointed when i discovered one of my favorite musicals was now insulting to me.) and i find it somewhat obsolete. lets have more musicals like Millie which promotes independence and the desire to find a partner who is your equal.
you may know what you need but to get what you want better see that you keep what you have
