My Fair Lady for the best of music!

“The difference between a lady and a flower girl is not how she behaves, but how she’s treated.”

Eliza Dolittle

Vanessa Redgrave as Mrs Higgins and Amara Okereke as Eliza Dolittle (Photo: Marc Brenner)

George Bernard Shaw was not happy with his play Pygmalion being made into a musical.  Rodgers and Hammerstein tried.  Shaw felt a musical would be too sentimental. He died in 1950 but had revised the ending of Pygmalion to make it absolutely clear that Eliza does not fall in love with Professor Higgins. 

The Lerner and Lowe musical was produced in 1956 and with its glorious tunes, the book issues conflicting with Shaw’s wishes have been largely forgotten.  That is until Bartlett Sher took over the director’s reins at the Lincoln Centre in New York.  This is the production now at the Coliseum in London. 

The musical has a lovely new star in Amara Okereke who has a beautiful soprano voice and a penchant for comic acting.  We know that Eliza Dolittle is a diamond in the rough and that her vowels are egregious but it isn’t just her Lisson Grove accent which is rough but her over the top and lack of class, screeching.  This has to be a directorial choice, maybe to help Americans understand the differences in English accents and the way these are class indentifiers.  From Eliza’s accent you would think Lisson Grove was in Bermondsey not Marylebone-St John’s Wood borders!

Harry Hadden-Paton as Professor Henry Higgins, Amara Okereke as Eliza Dolittle and Malcolm Sinclair as Colonel Pickering (Photo: Marc Brenner)

Whereas Eliza maybe doesn’t know any better, Professor Henry Higgins (Henry Hadden-Paton, Eton College and brought up in a stately home in Hertfordshire) surely should, but his behaviour is selfish and in the modern vernacular, entitled.  He treats Eliza like an animal.   He also is drowned out by the 36 piece orchestra until “The Rain in Spain” which also shows Eliza’s gift for imitation which comes to the fore at Ascot.  Thank goodness Maureen Beattie, as his sensible Scots housekeeper Mrs Pearce, can remind Higgins of his unacceptable behaviour and duty to the young girl.

It is down to Henry’s mother (Vanessa Redgrave, but on the night I saw, Annie Wensak) to teach Eliza how to behave in society, not just how to speak.  She is at least kindly to Eliza.  How wonderful it must have been to see the late Diana Rigg in the role on Broadway in 2018! Higgins’s friend and fellow linguist Colonel Pickering (Malcolm Sinclair), too is a gentleman. 

Company in My Fair Lady (Photo: Marc Brenner)

Stephen K Amos doesn’t quite fill the Alfred Dolittle role as, the night I saw, his witty sung lyrics were hard to hear.   The rousing “Get Me to the Church on Time” has can can dancers, again with the wrong knickers  (see Moulin Rouge), some of whom are transgender in a fashionable nod to theatrical diversity, but irrelevant to My Fair Lady.

Although Alfred Dolittle and his daughter Eliza are played by Black British actors, any racial divide equating with class does not hold up as the Ascot and ball scenes have women of class and colour.  But the audience, not yet fully understanding colour blind casting, chuckle away as Higgins explains that Eliza is not a relative.

This Fair Lady has numerous impressive sets with circular staircases but the costumes are breath taking visions of Edwardian glamour, hats to die for and frocks with sumptuous, silken and taffeta flounces by Catherine Zuber.  The production is touring after its stay in London so let’s hope it can take the sets with them. 

Harry Hadden-Paton as Professor Henry Higgins (Photo: Marc Brenner)

There is no sexual chemistry between Eliza and Higgins nor with the young blade of Pygmalion, Freddie Eynsford-Hill (Sharif Afifi) who is not only besotted but such a wimp, a spirited Eliza couldn’t possibly find him attractive.  And his mother is ghastly.  Shaw was persuaded to change his ambiguous ending to his play Pygmalion but made it very clear that Higgins does not win Eliza’s heart.

You will go to see My Fair Lady  for the gloriously sung tunes, hats and costume and a reminder on the intractable sexism and arrogance of the middle aged bachelor whose mother has failed to educate him in how to behave.  What I don’t think you will necessarily love, on this occasion, is Bartlett Sher’s direction.  See My Fair Lady  for the music and To Kill a Mocking Bird  for his creative direction! 

Maureen Beattie as Mrs Pearce (Photo: Marc Brenner)

Musical Numbers

Act One

 Overture  

 Why Can’t the English?  

 Wouldn’t It Be Loverly?  

 With a Little Bit of Luck  

 I’m an Ordinary Man  

 With a Little Bit of Luck (Reprise)  

 Just You Wait  

 The Servants’ Chorus

 The Rain in Spain  

 I Could Have Danced All Night  

 Ascot Gavotte  

 On the Street Where You Live  

Act Two

Embassy Waltz  

 You Did It

 Just You Wait (Reprise)

On the Street Where You Live (Reprise)  

 Show Me  

Wouldn’t It Be Loverly? (Reprise)  

Get Me to the Church on Time  

 A Hymn to Him  

 Without You  

 I’ve Grown Accustomed to Her Face  

 

Production Notes

My Fair Lady

Book and Lyrics by Alan J.  Lerner

Music: Frederick Lowe

Choreographed by Christopher Gatteli

Directed by Bartlett Sher

Cast

Starring:

Malcolm Sinclair

Vanessa Redgrave

Amara Okereke

Harry Hadden-Paton

Maureen Beattie

Sharif Afifi

Stephen K Amos

 

With:

Dammi Aregbeshola

Bernadette Bangura

Joseph Claus

Jordan Crouch

Jamie Cruttenden

Francesca Daniella-Baker

Barry Drummond

Bethany Huckle

Heather Jackson

Emma Johnson

Charlotte Kennedy

Sinead Kenny

Jenny Legg

Tom Liggins 

Rebekah Lowings

Carl Patrick

Tom Ping

Dominique Planter

Joseph Poulton

John Stacey

Joshua Steel

Oliver Tester

Adam Vaughan

Annie Wensak

Paul Westwood

 

 

 

Creatives

Director: Bartlett Sher

Choreographer: Christopher Gatteli

Set Designer: Michael Yeargan

Costume Designer:  Catherine Zuber

Musical Supervisor: Ted Sperling

Lighting Designer:  Donald Holder

Sound Designer: Mark Salzburg

Video and Projection: Douglas O’Connell

Musical Director: Gareth Valentine

Orchestrations: Robert Russell Bennett and Philip J Lang

Information

Running Time: Three hours  with an interval

Booking until 27th August 2022

 

Theatre:

London Coliseum

St Martin’s Lane

London WC2N 4ES

Rail/Tube : Charing Cross

Reviewed by Lizzie Loveridge at the

London Coliseum on 7th June 2021

Company in My Fair Lady (Photo: Marc Brenner)