From ‘umble Cockney flower girl to polished pronunciation fit for a princess, My Fair Lady is one of the classic rags-to-riches stories loved by many, its place cemented in the cultural psyche thanks to the award-winning 1964 film version starring Audrey Hepburn and Rex Harrison.
My Fair Lady’s source material is George Bernard Shaw’s 1913 play Pygmalion, adapted for the Broadway stage by Lerner and Loewe in 1956, followed by the aforementioned film and numerous stagings around the world.
A much-loved romantic comedy, director Nikolai Foster has amassed a great deal of creative talent for Curve’s main Christmas production; an intriguing choice of musical, given some of the themes and attitudes depicted. However, the excellent full-cast numbers and comedic moments, plus a smattering of uses of the auditorium as part of the performance space show the fun side to theatre.
Michael Taylor’s set design is impressive, revolving from the arches and columns of Covent Garden to Higgins’s wonderfully messy Edwardian study, packed full of books, papers and gadgetry of the day. Taylor’s costumes too are elegant and detailed and add greatly to the show’s polished sheen.
Following a chance encounter at her Covent Garden flower stall, Eliza Doolittle (Molly Lynch) meets noted phonetician Professor Henry Higgins (David Seadon-Young), who in turn bumps into visiting fellow academic Colonel Pickering (Minal Patel). Appalled by Eliza’s “vulgar” dialect, Higgins bets with Pickering that he can coach Eliza to speak “correctly” and be passed off as a duchess at an embassy ball. Eliza is outraged by this, however, later seeks out Higgins for lessons to improve her speech as she dreams of working in an upmarket florist’s shop.
With Pickering already installed as Higgins’s house guest, Eliza now joins the household for a series of intense lessons and vocal direction, until finally, her vowel transformation is complete, as sung in the entertaining “The Rain in Spain”. Meanwhile, her father, Albert P Doolittle (Steve Furst), with an eye for a meal and beer ticket, manages to use Eliza’s new position for his own gain.
After her success at the embassy ball, what next for Henry and Eliza? Act 2 deals with the emotional fallout from their experiences, with Eliza trying to make sense of what she has now become.
Higgins could be described as, to put it nicely, a pompous, misogynistic boor. In Seadon-Young’s performance, we also see him as rather eccentric, removed from reality and hiding from his emotions in his chosen position of confirmed bachelor. His is the greater personal journey in this story, and the final scenes, and his performance in “I’ve Grown Accustomed To Her Face”, are powerful and moving. Mark Henderson’s excellent lighting design is striking here too, with Seadon-Young in anguished moonlit silhouette.
Eliza is a strong-willed and determined young woman, and Lynch encapsulates Eliza’s own personal journey, revealing her vulnerability but also her strength of character. She may lack education and status, but Eliza is the one with moral courage and emotional intelligence.
This musical considers issues around class, and while it is set on the brink of huge social change just before the outbreak of World War I, there is still much to think about in the context of society today. In terms of dialect, linguistic studies consistently show we are all judged by how we speak, and that will inevitably continue as long as there are humans. Women’s rights have come a long way since Edwardian times, and there are nods to this with Mrs Pearce (Sarah Moyle) and her affiliation to the suffragettes and the ironies (and withering eye-rolling) writ large during “A Hymn to Him”.
All credit to Foster, choreographer Joanna Goodwin and the fantastic cast for this sparkling production, tricky with Lerner’s wordiness in book and lyrics, but the vocal performances particularly are superb. Special mention to Jonathan Dryden Taylor as Harry for some beautiful harmonisation and Djavan van de Fliert as Eliza’s rebound love interest Freddy and a stirring “On The Street Where You Live”.
In different productions, the ending has been left on an ambiguous note for audiences to decide for themselves how Henry and Eliza’s relationship will end. Not so much doubt here, but it brings the comedy and conflict in this absorbing and richly detailed production to a satisfying, if slightly teary end.
Reviewer: Sally Jack