REVIEW: Pygmalion at the People’s Theatre
Daisy Burden shines as an endearing Eliza Doolittle
They’re on a roll at the People’s with this enjoyable production of George Bernard Shaw’s famous comedy following hot on the heels of Martin McDonagh’s Hangmen which also impressed.
A century separates the two plays and it’s hard to imagine the latter spawning a hit musical (as Pygmalion did with My Fair Lady) – although in the theatre you should never say never.
Bernard Shaw visited the People’s and the Newcastle amateur theatre company, born of the Fabian Society, was fond of his plays.
Pygmalion, which premiered just before the First World War, has been staged several times with this production commemorating People’s actor Roger Hogg who played Henry Higgins in 1986.
The role falls this time to Jake Wilson Craw who makes the professor of phonetics as bumptious and self-regarding as Shaw must have intended him to be – for he resisted pleas to sweeten the ending with overt romance between Higgins and Eliza Doolittle.
This is the Cockney flower seller he picks up on a street corner and sets about teaching her to talk like a duchess after accepting a bet from Colonel Pickering – another linguist chappie (and fan) who happened to be on the spot at the time (you see, in the theatre anything’s possible).
And what a terrific Eliza we have here in Daisy Burden whose vocal dexterity and expressive face surely would have delighted Shaw – even though he wrote the part for the much admired Mrs Patrick Campbell who was nearly 50 when she played it in the West End.
Daisy is much, much younger but perfect in the role. Eliza’s sparring with Higgins throughout the play is a delight and you root for her. She makes you believe in the personal effort invested in her switch from working girl to duchess – although of course, as the latter she’s a fake, as Higgins will cruelly remind her.
Shaw’s play is about the notion of class. Eliza, as a street flower seller, was deemed the lowest of the low although, as she later points out, in that capacity she at least had a degree of independence. If acquiring a husband is the only option for a fake duchess, isn’t that akin to prostitution?
Nowadays the sweet thrill at the end is in Higgins’s comeuppance and Eliza’s triumph. In Shaw’s clever text, the merest hint of rapprochement hangs in the air – but no-one’s going to leave the theatre feeling cheated because the pair didn’t fall into each other’s arms.
While it’s a period piece, Pygmalion is not an anachronism. Heated debates arise quite frequently about “proper” ways to speak, particularly on the BBC where for years regional accents were frowned upon. Plenty of food for thought here.
The performances in Tracey Lucas’s production are uniformly good, with Jim Boylan as an avuncular Pickering, Maggie Childs a fount of common sense as mum to the priggish Higgins and Jack Thompson as Eliza’s rather odd dad, Alfred, whose detached attitude to parenting sees him elevated from working class labourer to middle class lecturer in a top hat – great comedy but rather less plausible even than Eliza’s transformation (although this is, of course, theatre where anything can happen).
There’s another sensible woman in the piece, too – housekeeper Mrs Pearce, played by Helen Parker whose repertoire of disapproving looks I greatly enjoyed.
Do catch Pygmalion. It runs until Saturday, March 22, and you’ll find ticket details on the People’s Theatre website.