Talk about speed dating!
Tonight at a preview of Shaw’s Pygmalion at the Old Vic.
With Bertie Carvel as Professor Higgins it’s off to a pretty good start, of course, even playing at the extraordinary pace (one hour 50 with no interval) of this.
Much of the action is played, at least in the first half, through staccato piano music, both in the opening scene when Higgins meets Eliza and through the elocution and education phases. Even Shaw’s politicising is taken at pace, Alfred Doolittle (John Marquez) races though his counter-intuitive exposition of the pluses of being the undeserving poor, positively leaping around the room.
And our Eliza (Patsy Ferran) is a wonderfully cast Eliza, crouching (slightly) as the flower girl to straightening her back as the ‘finished article’, thus appearing to grow into her new persona. With a fine and sympathetic Colonel Pickering (Michael Gould) and an excellent Sylvestra Le Touzel as the wonderfully grounded Mrs Higgins (and also doubling) there is strong cast support.
Professor Higgins almost channels Shaw's own views ('I treat beggar and duchess the same – badly') – what is strange is that in very many plays he gives the best lines (and the most sympathetic characters) to his women protagonists, and this play is no exception. No spoilers, but the slightly re-written ending (very common with this play) absolutely does not let down or weaken this production.
It’s set 1920s in style, with the sets sufficient with furniture but no frills.
I’m guessing this will be a popular production – and it deserves to be.