Pygmalion 27th - 31st May 2014 Milton Keynes Theatre

If you remember the classic film "My Fair Lady" starring Audrey Hepburn, then you will know the story that is George Bernard Shaw's social inequality play Pygmalion - it's the same story, just without the music!

BAFTA award winning Alistair McGowan stars as phonetics expert Henry Higgins.  McGowan, better known for his impressions, shows a different side to his talents in this role - he plays the over enthusiastic boyish professor amazing well (even down to shuffling nervously with his loose change in his pockets...hopefully!?)

He is aided and abetted by the language aficionado Colonel Pickering (Paul Brightwell) to pluck a caterwauling cockney flower girl, Eliza Doolittle (Rachel Barry) from the gutter. Brightwell and Barry give sterling performances, but just a tad wooden at times.

The pompous Higgins makes a bet with his friend Pickering that he can transform the manners and speech of this "guttersnipe" into a Lady.  Neither one thinking what would become of a common flower girl, once the bet was won.

The highlight was Eliza's father, Alfred played by the scene stealing Jamie Foreman (Easters Derek Branning) his unorthodox preaching and shunning of the middle class excites Professor Higgins and propels this unlikely man into the the gentry (rebelling all the way!)

The wonderful Rula Lenska plays the very proper and indifferent mother to Higgins, not a huge part, but regally portrayed.

The cast bring this enduring masterpiece to life, the scripting is sublime bringing out the best of the memorable dialogue.

Jonathan Fensom's versatile set works wonders to allow lots of swift, slick movement from London's Covent Garden to the Professors abode, to Mrs. Higgins's drawing room and back again.  

This play exceeded my expectations in every department and is a great evening's entertainment.

Lily B X