Having begun his dance studies in his home town, he moved to London as a teenager and continued his training at the Sadler's Wells Ballet School.
With a truncated surname, Brian Shaw joined the Sadler's Wells Ballet upon graduation from its school in June 1944, when he was still only fifteen years old, and was soon promoted to soloist.
One observers wrote, "There was nothing virtuoso about the dancing; it was unceasingly lovely and created an impression of effortless lyricism and almost godlike serenity which at moments quickened under the urgent tempo of the music to blaze 'like splendor out of heaven.
[6] His career as a classical dancer virtually ended, however, when he collapsed on stage at the Metropolitan Opera House in New York City in 1967 after tearing an Achilles tendon during a performance of the Blue Bird.
A fine comic actor, he was applauded as an Ugly Sister in Cinderella and as a particularly waspish Widow Simone in La Fille Mal Gardée.