In March 1872, William Brough's Pygmalion; or, The Statue Fair was revived, and in May of that year, a visiting French company produced Victor Massé's Galathée.

Pygmalion and Galatea, a satire of sentimental, romantic attitudes toward myth, was one of seven plays that Gilbert produced in 1871.

They established that his capabilities extended far beyond burlesque and won him artistic credentials as a writer of wide range, who was as comfortable with human drama as with farcical humour.

Under the fire of Cynisca's jealousy, and seeing the difficulty in which she has placed Pygmalion, Galatea decides that her original state was happier, and turns back into a statue.

... Gilbert's comedy ... points to new biological, psychological, social, and ethical issues raised by the ... sequencing of the genome and the explosion of stem cell research.