I have to admit to having ‘previous’ with My Fair Lady. The Christmas I was 8 some well-meaning soul bought me the VHS of the 1964 film starring Rex Harrison and Audrey Hepburn as the Professor of Phonetics and his living doll Eliza Doolittle. To my mother’s exasperation, I proceeded to play it on loop well into the New Year. So when the overture struck-up for the Crucible’s Christmas production of Lerner and Loewe’s pitch perfect musical, a wave of nostalgia washed over me and I realised I knew every word.
Putting aside this partiality, on paper George Bernard Shaw’s Pygmalion – which My Fair Lady is based on – seems a strange starting point for a collection of cheery song and dance numbers. Shaw’s play is a polemic on the British class system and patriarchy, in which the celebrated Professor Higgins wagers he can take a ‘squashed cabbage leaf’ of a flower girl and pass her off as a duchess simply by giving her a good wash, a new frock and, most crucially, improving her speech. Interminable vocal exercises follow until Eliza’s voice is improved but her sense of identity is obliterated. Once the bet is won she is left neither market moll nor society lady but still in thrall to her teacher. My Fair Lady shares this plot and the Edwardian setting but somehow manages to spin a witty libretto and sparkling score out of a what is essentially a ‘debate play.’ The show is packed tight as a Christmas stocking with humour, songs that both develop the characters and animate the plot and some delicious set pieces such as the Ascot Opening Day and the Embassy Ball.
Matching the marvelousness of the musical itself, Daniel Evans’ production is a complete delight, balancing style and substance in Paul Wills ingenious revolving set and some bristling banter from the central performers. Carly Bawden is particularly impressive as Eliza, a part which is all singing, all dancing and requires both a cockney and cut glass accent – a package which not even Ms Hepburn could manage since her singing was dubbed by Marnie Nixon. Bawden is feisty, funny and vulnerable as a woman both empowered and imprisoned by her gentrification. Her spirited rendition of ‘Just You Wait’ was full of physical comedy and real vitriol while ‘I Could Have Danced All Night’ had the elegant smoothness of a debutant’s waltz. Local boy made good, Dominic West, relishes the eloquent arrogance of Professor Higgins, enjoying every pompous pronouncement in ‘A Hymn to Him’. Later when Eliza abandons him, his bravdo is suitably deflated and his performance of ‘I’ve Grown Accustomed to Her Face’ Is almost tender. He also works a smoking jacket with nearly as much style as the dapper Rex Harrison.
Ample support is given by Richenda Carey as a Bracknellesque Mrs Higgins and Nicola Sloane as the dutiful but exasperated housekeeper Mrs Pearce. Anthony Calf is a kinder counterpoint to Higgins as the genial Colonel Pickering and Louis Maskell is an especially wet behind the ears Freddy Eynsford-Hill who sings, ‘On the Street Where you Live’ beautifully. I wasn’t so convinced by Martyn Ellis as Alfred P. Doolittle – not quite quick enough with the wit or nimble enough with the dancing to turn in a truly great comic performance. However, huge credit should go to the chorus who work a triple shift as gurning cockneys (elbows out and knees up Mother Brown), elegant aristocracy (ballroom dancing and bling) and the domestic staff of Wimpole Street (all pristine mob caps and polished brogues).
In a time of austerity (not that you’d know from this gilt-edged production) My Fair Lady is cultural comfort food at its best. The lavish set and ravishing costumes show what a talented production team the Crucible has. Daniel Evans assured direction and ability to attract a top drawer cast confirms the building is in good hands. My only question mark about the show is its ending. I can’t quite reconcile the love story – would such a spirited character as Eliza really go back to live in captivity with Professor Higgins? Perhaps if he had Dominic West’s swagger…..
My Fair Lady runs at the Crucible in Sheffield until 26 January. Find more details here.