Lionel Shave was the son of Charles O. Shave of Colchester, England. He was educated at Scotch College and became a Melbourne advertising executive. Shave was a manager of Meyers Bros. Ltd. in Queensland 1916-1918 and opened his own advertising agency, Griffin, Shave & Russell Pty. Ltd. in Melbourne in 1920. Later he was a director of George Patterson Pty. Ltd. which incorporated his company. Parsons comments: 'Lionel Shave's plays were widely popular with amateur groups. Their content, in the manner of the lightweight commercial playwriting of the day, was unremarkable but their adept, strong craftsmanship testifies to a real flair for the theatre.' He wrote plays for stage and radio; some were broadcast overseas.
'His first play was The Parallelogram, which appeared in Adam and Eve in August, 1926,' although its form as a play was solely for literary purposes. He then began writing plays In earnestly for the Amateur Theatre In 1931, and has had two full-length productions, That's Different and Gigolo Husband. In addition, he has written about a dozen one-act plays. In 1937 he won the Bryant Playhouse play competition with That's Murder. His radio plays have been numerous, including The Resignation of Mr. Bagsworth and The Dumbles, a series of 13 episodes, for the Australian Broadcasting Commission' ('Radio Drama Week : Plays and Their Writers,' p. 2).
[Additional sources: Philip Parsons, 'Lionel Shave' in Companion to Theatre in Australia 91995), p. 526; Who's Who in Australia (1950), p. 644]
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