Many of Shaw's early plays were either banned by the censor or refused production. He began the practice of writing the challenging, mocking, eloquent prefaces to his plays, which were sometimes longer than the play itself. In 1925 he was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature. The Apple Cart is Shaw's comedic play in which the King defeats an attempt by his popularly elected Prime Minister to deprive him of the right to influence public opinion through the press: in short, to reduce him to a cipher.