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Pygmalion By George Bernard Shaw Theatre Royal Bath Forget the sugary glamour of My Fair Lady. This is Shaw at his sharpest, clearest and least sentimental.

It's very funny, but with an ouch.

For anyone unfamiliar with the story, Professor Henry Higgins, a phonetics expert, makes a bet with dialect expert Colonel Pickering that he can transform a Cockney flower girl into a duchess in six months, by teaching her how to speak, dress and behave like a duchess.

His housekeeper and mother both ask the sensible question: "What then? What becomes of the girl when the experiment is over?"

They quite rightly foresee that she will be left in a social no-man's land. But the professor and his friend ignore the warnings and regard the experiment as a success, forgetting Eliza is a human being.

With one exception, the main cast is the same as that which performed the play during last summer's Peter Hall season at the Theatre Royal.

The exception is James Laurenson who replaces Barry Stanton as Pickering and is a perfect kindly, courteous gentleman, who contrasts vividly with Tim Pigott-Smith's self-centred, insensitive Higgins, an overbearing, spoiled brat.

Barbara Jefford is again Higgins' long-suffering mother who despairs of his lack of manners and grace.

Una Stubbs is a crisp and sympathetic Mrs Pearce, Higgins' sorely-tried housekeeper. Then we have the inimitable Tony Haygarth as the garrulous and amoral Alfred Higgins, father of Eliza, the subject of the social experiment.

Michelle Dockery, who was in Bath only a couple of months ago in Uncle Vanya, reprises the role of Eliza, joyfully mangling vowels as the flower girl, giving a wonderfully funny performance as the emerging but painfully stilted society lady and then blossoming into confidence as the professor's finished creation, and a spirited match for his sharp tongue.

It is every bit as enjoyable as it was last year. It is Shaw's 1916 original, without adornments and runs all week.

Jo Bayne

6:00am Thursday 1st May 2008

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