Grand Opera House York – until Saturday 25th November. Reviewed by Michelle Richardson
4****
Based on George Bernard Shaw’s play Pygmalion, Pick Me Up Theatre brings My Fair Lady to the stage at the Grand Opera House in York this week.
Most of us know the tale of Eliza Doolittle (Toni Feetenby) and her transformation from the cockney flower girl into an elegant lady, tutored by the smug and pompous Professor Henry Higgins (Rory Mulvihill), who is a linguistics expert. Egged on by Colonel Pickering (Mark Hird), they make a wager on whether or not Higgins will succeed and turn Eliza into a lady able to mix with royalty.
All Eliza wants to do is to own her own flower shop as opposed to selling flowers in the street, struggling to make a living. Eliza agrees to take lessons with Higgins, in fact she approaches him and offers to pay before moving into his house at 27a Wimpole Street, in the belief she will better herself and increase her chances in opening her own shop.
Before her transformation, Eliza is loud and brash, and cries like a strangled cat when things go wrong, wiping her nose on her sleeve in the process, but this all changes after her elocution lessons with Higgins. In fact, she is mistaken for European royalty following her transformation and outing at the Embassy Ball, a success all round, or is it?
Feetenby delivers a superb performance as the leading lady, her transformation is wonderful to watch and the work and effort put into her role with the changing of character and accents is amazing. She seamlessly delivers both parts with equal success. This is the third time she has played Eliza Doolittle over the years and you can tell how comfortable she is with the role. Mulvihil was convincing playing the arrogant, controlling, sometimes awkward and yet ultimately charming role of Professor Henry Higgins. His treatment of Eliza at time is so belittling and condescending, trying to really disguise his true feelings, you couldn’t help but love and loathe him at the same time. Just like Feetenby, My Fair Lady is not new to him having previously played Higgins in an earlier production. The lead characters were superb, perfectly cast and performed with great voices.
I must also mention Sam Hird as Freddy Eynsford-Hill, the lovelorn young chap in love with Eliza, his singing just blew me away, what a voice!
The stage was well used and the choreography was excellent, especially considering the amount of performers there were on stage. The costumes were also excellent, at times beautiful, and the amount of changes that all the cast had was staggering, how all managed that so successfully is a feat on its own. All I can say is that the back of house did a fantastic job and a huge well done must go to all who we never get to see.
It is always great to hear live music at theatre show and this was no exception, though at times I did find the orchestra to be overly loud and not necessarily always consistent in their playing. Saying that it did not detract from the singing or overall effect of the show. I did also find that there were a couple of scenes that really dragged on just a bit too long for me, which made for a very long show.
Overall the large cast worked well on stage, with near flawless performances by all. I’m always amazed at how supposedly amateur productions put on such professional shows and I had to keep reminding myself that it was in fact an amateur show, the only way I could tell was because of the very large cast. It was a credit to the well-loved film, and a brilliant display of teamwork and how amateur theatre should be done.