A stunning 60th anniversary recreation of the original 1956 Broadway production, including sets and costumes, My Fair Lady is a showcase of all that is great about musical theatre. It is, of course, the beloved tale of a Cockney flower girl named Eliza Doolittle. Her world is forever changed by the brilliant and demanding phonetician Henry Higgins, who accepts a wager to pass her off as a lady.
With book and lyrics by Alan Jay Lerner and music by Frederick Loewe, My Fair Lady is adapted from George Bernard Shaw’s 1913 play and producer Gabriel Pascal’s 1938 motion picture Pygmalion.
Other principal cast members include Tony Llewellyn-Jones as Colonel Hugh Pickering (with whom Henry has a bet) and Robyn Nevin as Henry’s mother. The role of Freddy Eynsford-Hill (Eliza’s lapdog suitor) is filled by Mark Vincent, while Deidre Rubenstein plays Henry’s housekeeper, Mrs Pearce. The set and costume designers (Oliver Smith and Cecil Beaton) have gone to extraordinary lengths to ensure the era depicted – London in 1912 – has been faithfully captured.
The opulence and majesty of several scenes is breathtaking. The choreography by Christopher Gattelli is another feature, elevating My Fair Lady to the highest echelons of the art form. And then there is the divine music (musical direction comes from Guy Simpson), highlights of which include “Wouldn’t It Be Loverly?”, “With a Little Bit of Luck”, “The Rain in Spain”, “I Could Have Danced All Night”, On the Street Where You Live” and “Get Me to the Church on Time” … simply put, faultless.
If there was ever a lesson in how to extract the most out of musical theatre, this is it and we are all the better off seeing it at the grand Regent Theatre, where it is playing until 27th July. The show returns to Sydney for an encore season at the Capitol Theatre from 24th August.
Alex First
Other reviews you might enjoy:
- Pygmalion (New Theatre) – theatre review
- The Bodyguard Musical – Melbourne – theatre review
- Rent (Chapel off Chapel) – theatre review
David Edwards is the editor of The Blurb and a contributor on film and television