12:20pm Friday 12th March 2010
By Sue le Blond
Shaw a bore? Not bloody likely! Brought up on My Fair Lady, the hummable musical film, I confess I expected to find the original play of 1913 a huge yawn. Not a bit of it.
Thanks to Ad Hoc’s team of energetic, confident actors and a direction that brings out a vibrant feminist and social message, this revival gave food for thought nicely balanced with a lot of digestible fun.
The story of Eliza Doolittle’s (Sarah Cooke) journey from cockney flower girl to rounded vowels and elegant small talk and much further is well known, as is the peppery tuition of her puppet-master, Professor Higgins (Graham Paton).
Jenny Lane’s production reveals a surprisingly complex take on the gender war.
Ad Hoc make the most of a spread of supporting roles.
Paul Batson at the “undeserving poor dustman” Alfred Doolittle, David Wood as the crusty but kindly Colonel Pickering, the mincingly posh Eynsford Hill ladies (Pat Cannings and Caroline Murray), the voices of restraint in Higgins’s housekeeper (Sylvia Clegg) and mother (Dot Barker) are all spot on.
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