Pygmalion, Old Vic Theatre review ★★★★★

The story of Pygmalion is arguably better known in the context of its musical spin-off, My Fair Lady. But it’s the subversive, unromantic ending in George Bernard Shaw’s original 1938 play over Lerner and Loewe’s 1956 musical that appeals to our 21st-century desire to see women prioritise themselves over settling for a life of submission.

This is presumably part of the reason director Richard Jones has chosen to stage a rare revival of Shaw’s play. A shame, then, that the resulting production is such a staid affair, but at least it’s lent a star turn by the ever-malleable Patsy Ferran (A Streetcar Named Desire).

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Covent Garden flower girl Eliza Doolittle (Ferran) is taken on as an experiment by phonetics professor and confirmed bachelor Henry Higgins (Bertie Carvel). The latter makes a bet with his pal, the fellow phonetics enthusiast Colonel Pickering (Michael Gould, cheery and gentle), that he can pass Eliza off as a lady at an upcoming society ball.

Patsy Ferran (Eliza Doolittle) and Bertie Carvel (Henry Higgins) in Pygmalion at The Old Vic. Photo: Manuel Harlan

Eliza goes along with the plan in the hope that learning to ‘speak proper’ will help her secure a job in a flower shop. But what neither party considers until it’s too late is what will become of Eliza once she has the tongue and manners of a lady but is otherwise alien to that class.

Ferran, we’ve learned, is brilliant at bringing fresh perspectives to any role she lands. Here, she dials up the physicality as the unrefined Eliza, swinging her arms and lolloping about the stage. She gradually becomes more demure under Henry's control, but continues to do a wonderful job of acting with her eyes. Her sly glances are wickedly funny as she holds the guests of Mrs Higgins (stalwart Sylvestra Le Touzel) rapt with her tale about her dead aunt, even if Jones’s direction loses the subtlety of what can be the play’s funniest moment.

Bertie Carvel (Henry Higgins), Caroline Moroney (Ensemble), Patsy Ferran (Eliza Doolittle), Sylvestra Le Touzel (Mrs Higgins) and Taheen Modak (Freddy Eynsford Hill) in Pygmalion at The Old Vic. Photo: Manuel Harlan

Opposite her, Carvel is an overly camp Henry. His nutty professor eccentricities and overdone tic of sticking out his tongue tempers the roguish appeal the part ordinarily possesses.

While not a romance, there’s usually a degree of chemistry between Eliza and Henry that’s amiss here, in part because the story is taken at such a lick. It’s a relief to breeze through those arduous elocution lessons, but this leaves little time for a sense of their relationship to develop. We believe Taheen Modak as the infatuated Freddie, though, whose unperturbed smiles and giddy laughs are truly sweet.

It’s hard to pin down the period of Jones’s production. Stewart Laing’s costumes hint at the 1930s, for the most part, but then Eliza appears in a quilted coat, bucket hat and plimsolls – get-up that wouldn't look out of place at a summer festival. Set-wise, Laing focuses on Henry’s professional status over his class, setting chunks of the play in an intimidating (and not overly inspiring) looking classroom with easels brandishing lessons and grid-like walls.

Henry hurls all sorts of misogynistic, classist insults at Eliza, but we realise by the end his life is as stunted as hers, albeit for different reasons. It’s a satisfying moment, seeing her walk out of the door, but with so little connection between them, it’s unclear what Henry feels he’s losing.

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