Harry Hadon-Paton is a younger Professor Henry Higgins than we’re used to, which makes his fogeyish condescension more notable, especially when he debates his Frankenstein-like experiment to transform Eliza into the model of a high society lady with the older Colonel Pickering (Malcolm Sinclair), who is unfailingly gallant. Although the ending might come as a surprise, it is closer to the one that George Bernard Shaw – on whose play Pygmalion it is based – preferred.
A strong cast including Maureen Beattie as Higgins’ stoical housekeeper Mrs Pearce, Sharif Afifi as Eliza-besotted, upper-class twit Freddy and Vanessa Redgrave as Higgins’ dignified, waspish mother inhabit their roles triumphantly.
Michael Yeargan’s Edwardian steampunk sets are magnificent, though the unforgiving space of the Coliseum does few favours for the dialogue which occasionally drifts into a foggy echo.
But all the requisite elements are firmly in place. Choreographer Christopher Gattelli’s orgiastic Get Me To The Church On Time sequence is played like a stag night in a pop-up theatre and, in the beautifully drilled Ascot scene, Catherine Zuber’s costumes and headgear pay tribute to Cecil Beaton.
The sense that Eliza has been used as a guinea pig for Higgins’ own egotistical ends and her hard-won independence come across with more than usual force. Otherwise, it may not be groundbreaking but star-making it most certainly is.
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