2:54pm Tuesday 20th July 2010
By Ian Murray
Cor blimey, Guvnor! It’s a bloomin’ smash – that’s wot it is.
The irony at the heart of Bernard Shaw’s Pygmalion, which opened last night to a standing ovation at Chichester, lies in the central theme.
At the turn of the last century, Professor Higgins’ attempts to train flower girl Eliza Doolittle to lose her Cockney accent and find an acceptable place in society would have struck a chord with an audience that recognised a world in which everyone should know their position.
Today to have such a regional accent would see you snapped up by the BBC before you could drop an ‘h’.
However, accents do cause problems in this star-studded production, as Honeysuckle Weeks in the role of Eliza is difficult to understand when in her broad Cockney character. But the transformation to gentlewoman earns its rewards for the audience with Eliza’s quite sensational comic turn at the famous tea reception at the home of Professor Higgins’ mother, played by the indomitable Stephanie Cole.
Miss Cole steals every scene she is in with her usual marvellous timing, but she is given a run for her money by Peter Eyre as Colonel Pickering and Phil Davis as Eliza’s dad, Alfred.
The star of the show is Hollywood actor Rupert Everett, who brings his marvellous dismissive style to Professor Higgins.
Everett presents Higgins as a stylish, well-groomed, sophisticated toff – somewhat at odds with the befuddled academic we had come to expect from others in the role.
The performance is a masterpiece and there’s no doubt that he commands the stage.
The only question throughout for this reviewer was who exactly Everett sounded like during some of Professor Higgins’ more eloquent attempts to persuade.
The answer struck me deep into the second act: David Cameron.
The production does suffer from its two intervals making it disjointed, and spectacular scenery at the beginning peters out towards the end. But this is a memorable Pygmalion.
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