Pygmalion is arguably George Bernard Shaw’s most famous play, partly of course because it spawned the even-more famous musical and film My Fair Lady. So many will be familiar with the story of the flower-girl, Eliza Doolittle, whom the phonetics professor Henry Higgins tutors to replace her spirited Cockney speech and character with the received pronunciation and deportment worthy of the English drawing-room. The enduring popularity of Pygmalion can be attributed to the romantic arc of its central story, and to the fact that it offers two iconic parts in the characters of Eliza and Higgins.
As we record this episode, the improbable couple are currently being played in a new production at The Old Vic theatre in London by two of our most respected stage actors, Patsy Ferran and Bertie Carvel. Shaw’s own reaction to his play’s popularity was typically contrary and immodest: “There must be something radically wrong with the play if it pleases everybody, but at the moment I cannot find what it is.”
Well judging by its continuing popularity, there can’t be much wrong with this play, but to help me assess Shaw’s parable of social mobility I’m delighted to welcome back to the podcast our go-to Shaw expert, Ivan Wise. I was fortunate enough to talk to Ivan about the first Shaw play that we covered on the podcast, Arms and the Man, in episode 57.
Check out our review of the Old Vic production of Pygmalion here: The Play Review – Pygmalion
