My Fair Lady review
Joseph Pitcher and his company deliver a masterclass in boutique musical theatre
Ever since director George Cukor and designer Cecil Beaton immortalised Lerner and Loewe’s musical for the big screen, stage productions have attempted to emulate its style. But there is an intimacy to Shaw’s original 1913 play Pygmalion, and the later 1938 movie, both of which are quoted as source works for the musical. For this boutique production, director Joseph Pitcher embraces that quality, focusing not only on the emotional co-dependency between Eliza and Higgins but also on the burgeoning discontent of women and the working class in turn-of-the century England.
Pitcher’s production flatly refuses to compromise on anything other than space. Familiar musical numbers have been lovingly arranged and thoughtfully adapted by Charlie Ingles for a smaller band, while Pitcher and Alex Christian’s choreography allows big production numbers to raise the roof when required. Natalie Titchener’s costume designs are delightfully practical, catering to a small cast with much doubling, including several inspired touches such as the jewel-encrusted sophistication of Eliza’s ballgown. Yet ultimately, it’s Pitcher’s interpretation of this musical that engages and occasionally enthrals. Shaw’s social comedy flourishes here, as aspects of sex, wealth and class collide when Jo Servi’s gentlemanly Colonel Pickering bets Nadim Naaman’s coltish Henry Higgins that he can pass off Simbi Akande’s Eliza as a duchess at the embassy ball.
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The songs, story and fallout are of course familiar, but Pitcher and his creative team throw in so many surprises that this production wows. Wouldn’t It Be Loverly is ruefully introspective, while With a Little Bit of Luck gradually unfolds into an enormous production number that spreads through the auditorium. The Ascot Gavotte shows that Eliza is unlikely to abandon her tenacity, despite an ability to correctly pronounce her vowels, and I’ve Grown Accustomed to Her Face has Higgins genuinely realising the mistakes he has made.
Yet the whole story is distilled in the interplay between Naaman and Akande, who negotiate Higgins and Eliza’s relationship in very real terms. Naaman’s Higgins is an entitled man-child, intelligent, brusque and emotionally unsophisticated. He’s a man in a man’s world and that suits him perfectly. Akande’s Eliza is a fighter. She’s grown up in a violent, uncompromising world, and has the determination to fight her way to a better life. Their exchanges are exhausting and exciting, fuelled by input from Eliza’s errant father – a revelatory performance from Mark Moraghan – and from Higgins’ uncompromising mother, played by a sublime Sophie-Louise Dann.
Pitcher’s production is a pre-eminent example of how big Broadway musicals can successfully transfer to a smaller stage. Like his previous productions of Guy and Dolls and Gypsy at the Mill, it proves that sometimes intimacy is the key to unlocking the bigger picture.
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