Pygmalion

A major revival of George Bernard Shaw's classic play Pygmalion in London directed by Sir Peter Hall and starring Tim Pigott-Smith and Michelle Dockery.

"A scintillating revival of Shaw's most famous comedy" The Guardian

No play Shaw ever wrote enjoyed the instant success of Pygmalion and introduced two characters of such enduring personality as Professor Henry Higgins and the Cockney flower girl, Eliza Doolittle. Pygmalion formed the basis of the much-loved musical My Fair Lady and has been filmed as both a play and a musical. Leslie Howard, Rex Harrison, Richard Chamberlain and Jonathan Pryce have all played the arrogant Professor of Phonetics who makes a bet with his friend Colonel Pickering that he can turn a Cockney flower girl into a duchess. Wendy Hiller, Julie Andrews and Audrey Hepburn are amongst those who have been convincingly transformed.

"Peter Hall's fleet, fluent, strongly cast revival" The Daily Telegraph

The production of Pygmalion in London, which has toured the UK, stars Tim Pigott-Smith as 'Henry Higgins', Michelle Dockery as 'Eliza Doolittle', Tony Haygarth as 'Alfred Doolittle', Pamela Miles 'Mrs Eynsford Hill' and Una Stubbs as 'Mrs Pearce'. Casting subject to change.

"Michelle Dockery as Eliza pitches it perfectly" The Financial Times

"Pygmalion could be seen as the story of the flower girl who became a flower. But as Peter Hall's perfectly pitched production reveals, George Bernard Shaw's play is far more complicated than that. Michelle Dockery's Eliza is brilliantly contradictory. She is courageous, pathetic, dependent, feisty and exquisitely beautiful. And Dockery is a wonderful comic actress, especially in the scene where Eliza appears in society for the first time... Henry Higgins is shrewdly interpreted by Tim Pigott-Smith... Seeing this play so fabulously performed is like seeing a member of the family that you had taken for granted in a new light." The Observer

"[In] Peter Hall's handsome, intelligent staging... Michelle Dockery's excellent Eliza can squall like an alley cat, but she brushes up beautifully and is gloriously comic when relaying, in exquisitely refined tones, the awfully inappropriate tale of her aunt's demise: 'What become of her new straw hat that should have come to me? Somebody pinched it; and what I say is, them as pinched it done her in'... A marvellous play gets the production it deserves." The Mail on Sunday

"Pygmalion, Shaw's old social warhorse, remains thoroughly endearing... This particular version is further helped by a pitch-perfect Michelle Dockery in the lead role. She voices that snarly-cockney "Ah-ah-ah-ow-ow-ow-oo!" to perfection. Transformed into the elegant Miss Doolittle, she delivers lines such as "But it's my belief they done the old woman in" with a perfect U- Edwardian accent, ensuring that the tea party with the ghastly Eynsford-Hills remains astonishingly fresh and funny... This is Shaw revived with assurance and grace, stoutly old-fashioned and pleasurable, as are Simon Higlett's sets, all oak panelling, leather armchairs and salmon-pink jardinieres." The Sunday Times

"Rex Harrison's turn as Henry Higgins in My Fair Lady, the 1964 film version of GBS's play, was magnificently monstrous, but it had the effect of throwing the story off balance... In this faithful production, directed by Sir Peter Hall himself, Tim Pigott-Smith's more understated take on Higgins restores the equilibrium... Michelle Dockery's Eliza is, by contrast, a delight. She has the sort of porcelain skin and dark hair and eyes that look ravishing even from up in the gods. She is also a fine actress and gets across very well from the start what Higgins takes so long to accept - that she is a girl with 'feelings'." The Sunday Telegraph