Meanwhile Sir James Barrie and Mr. Bernard Shaw were coming along with leaps and bounds, but neither of them owed much to _Punch_ in the early years of the century. He had nothing but praise for H. B. Irving's acting in _The Admirable Crichton_, but it was a triumph for the actor rather than the playwright. The hero was "a perplexing creation," and the play "a queer mixture of comedy, extravaganza, farce and tragedy." Even less sympathetic was the first notice of _Peter Pan_, in 1905. As _Punch_ had detected resemblances to _The Overland Route_ and _Foul Play_ in _The Admirable Crichton_, so he now found reminiscences of _Peter Schlemihl_ and _Snowdrop_ in the new play. For the rest, he could find little either to amuse or that could even be acknowledged as new or original in the extravaganza. He could not even tell whether the children present enjoyed it. _Punch_ acknowledges that Barrie was the pet of the critics, and congratulates him on having his pieces perfectly acted by first-rate comedians. He frankly admits that he (_Punch_) was in the minority. A year later _Peter Pan_ is recognized as a popular favourite in a much more sympathetic notice. Mr. Shaw was a much tougher morsel to digest, but here, too, one notes a progressive appreciation from the days when _Punch_ pronounced _Man and Superman_ to be "unpresentable," not on moral grounds, but because it was not a mirror of humanity in point either of character or action. Similar reserves are expressed in the notice of _The Doctor's Dilemma_ in 1906. The general verdict is summed up in the epigram that "unfortunately, by steady abuse of it, Mr. Shaw has long ago forfeited his claim to be taken seriously." Yet the play contains "some very excellent phagocytes which enjoy a strong numerical advantage over its malevolent germs." So, again, _Cæsar and Cleopatra_, while affording in many ways a rare intellectual entertainment, was spoiled by the author's passion for being instructive; the piece fell between two stools, for it was neither frankly sacrilegious nor purely serious. The ingenious burlesque account of an imaginary meeting of "The Decayed Drama and Submerged Stage Rescue Society" in 1903 is in the main hostile to the societies which confined their activities to the revival of old plays that failed to attract the general public. But _Punch_ was by no means enamoured of all the manifestations of modernity, and the rumour in 1906 that Mr. Seymour Hicks was going to produce a musical comedy based on _As You Like It_ prompted a diverting retort in _Punch's_: "As We Certainly Don't Like It, a Musical Comedy in Two Acts, by Hicks von Rubenstammer and William Shakespeare." _Punch_ adds the note:-- "Great care has been taken to follow the usual musical-comedy plan of making the Second Act even worse than the first." His success may be judged by the extract that follows:-- ACT II _A wild place in Shepherd's Bush_