Book and Lyrics by Alan Jay Lerner
Music by Frederick Lowe
Adapted from Pygmalion by George Bernard Shaw
and Gabriel Pascal’s film Pygmalion
Directed By Rachel Kavanaugh
Choreography by Stephen Mear
Set & costume by Peter McKintosh
Musical Director Cat Beveridge
Chichester Festival Theatre
Saturday 18th June 2026, 14.30
CAST
Hadley Fraser – Henry Higgins
Keziah Ibe- Eliza Doolittle
Ben Culleton- Freddy Eynsford-Hill
Tony Jayawardena – Colonel Pickering
Belinda Lang- Mrs Higgins
Gary Milner- Alfred P. Doolittle
Finty Williams- Mrs Pearce
Jonathan Bourne- ensemble, cockney quartet, servant chorus
Nic Cain – ensemble, cockney quartet, policeman
Shani Cantor- ensemble, servant chorus
Mark d’Arcy- ensemble
Talia Duff – Onstage swing, dance captain
Nicholas Duncan- Harry
Zack Guest- onstage swing
Joe Henry- Zoltan Karparthy, cockney quartet
Jennifer LouiseJones – ensemble, Georgie the bar keeper
Ella Kora -ensemble, flower girl
Reuben Lally- ensemble
TJ Lloyd – ensemble
Maggie Lynne- ensemble, servant chorus
Anna McGarahan – ensemble, servant chorus
Kody Mortimer – ensemble, cockney quartet, servant chorus
Rachel Stanley – Mrs Eynsford-Hill , Mrs Hopkins
Jessica Vaux – ensemble, Mrs Higgins’ maid
Part one? Yes. We came back to our seats after the interval, the cast came on, costumed for the embassy ball there was blaring noise way above the volume of the other instruments, possibly a trumpet. The stage manager called a technical fault. We sat there for 45 minutes. Several times they tested the orchestra and BLARE! there it was again, They even took a second interval. Finally Justin Audibert, the artistic director, came on to cancel the show about ten past five. He said the box office would contact us on Monday to expedite refunds or ticket transfers. Good luck with that. Best wishes to the box office staff trying to sort that with a full house. It’s virtually sold out for matinees, very low availability for evenings. I came home, immediately went on line, checked every show and finally got an evening right at the end of the run, much as I hate evenings with the inevitable long roadwork diversions coming home.
I’d taken my 15 year old granddaughter who lives in Spain who absolutely loved it. She studies dance and singing. We can’t get tickets while she’s still here. That’s devastating for her. Karen had given up her own ticket so she could see it. I’ll see it again with Karen.
So what was the fault? why couldn’t they find it? I’d go through these changes, assuming every one of the 14 instruments was separately amplified. Firstly all the performers have radio mics. You don’t necessarily need radio mics for the orchestra, and I’d prefer conventional leads.
1) Switch the offending mic for another one 2) If that didn’t work, change the radio channel on the board 3) if that didn’t work, remove the instrument from the board altogether. Continue with no trumpet amplification, as trumpet cuts and the rest of the orchestra would hear it. The audience would hear some. Muddle through.
But while I know multi channel boards, I predate computer mixing and pre-programming. I’ve often been radio mic’d but usually with five or six people, not a whole musical cast. Was each instrument amplified, or were there mics suspended above them all as in recording a symphony orchestra? The tests were live, so I assume it is not totally programmed. Was a certain frequency triggering something off on the board? My solution? Drop the trumpet altogether, carry on, though I guess other instruments might later hit the same frequency.
Another answer: stop amplifying the orchestra altogether and rely on natural sound BUT would it affect the voice mics too? The performers would hear the orchestra. The acoustics are good, though it is a mighty hall.
A puzzle.
I will review as far as we got. I’ll add to it in August. With deference to the director Rachel’s Kavanaugh’s previous Half A Sixpence at Chicister, half a musical is better than no musical at all.
George Bernard Shaw left his house and the royalties of Pygmalion to the Society of Authors, of which I am a member. Productions of My Fair Lady have sustained the Society for years. I am immediately pleased it’s being produced.
We listened to the 1964 film soundtrack coming and going. We both agreed that every singer, every song was way better at Chichester than on the film soundtrack. The musical numbers were written to suit Rex Harrison’s limited range, and Hadley Fraser as Professor Henry Higgins is simply a better full range singer. He’s not straining to get there.
Gary Milner as Eliza’s dad has a far more vigorous approach than Stanley Holloway. Keziah Ibe as Eliza is a stunning performance in her professional debut. She too sings more naturally than Marni Nixon, who did the vocal that Audrey Hepburn thought was hers, going on the soundtrack. As with West Side Story, the actor thought they’d be on the soundtrack, but they were overdubbed.
The songs have history for us. We forced Karen to sing Wouldn’t It Be Loverly in our annual ELT pantomime Aladdin, as Aladdin trapped in the cave. At least twice we used a raucous Get Me To The Church on Time as the pantomime dame’s closing song, when she gets married off to the villain.
The cheerful lovable Cockney streeet people, led by Gary Milner as Alfred Doolittle are also excellent. Three come right down into the audience, less than a metre away from us in With A Little Bit of Luck.
The stage is total revolve rather than an inner revolve. This is an excellent ploy for singers as instead of having to move about to hit the audience, the stage moves them.
The set looks restrained until Henry Higgins study revolves into view, complex, detailed and full of antique recording apparatus. The levels and furniture allow full scope to Hadley Fraser’s athletic delivery of I’m An Ordinary Man. He leaps over and onto everything in the set. It’s so dynamic in contrast to Rex Harrison’s languid and tired delivery.
Tony Jayawardena was a well-cast foil to Higgins as Colonel Pickering. Concerned about Eliza in the face of Higgins’ callous diregard.
It’s amazing how much of Shaw’s text survives and how far it still works as comedy. This comes out when it’s closest to Pygmalion, so in Higgins’ study, as in his chat on phonetics. I laughed when Higgins spots Alfred Doolittle as ‘Born Hounslow, Welsh mother’ which describes my late actor cousin, or rather he was ‘Brought up Hounslow. Welsh mother.’
One of the most delightful moments is when Eliza is taken to Ascot so they show her off as a lady, and she lets herself down watching the race. In the film version she says ‘bloomin’ and I’m glad she now says ‘bloody.’ To retain the shock Shaw intended, I would have changed it to an F-bomb.
Post Ascot, the charmed Freddy Eynsford-Hill (Ben Culleton) goes to seek Eliza, leading to the song On The Street Where You Live. You know what I’m going to say, he does it better than Bill Shirley in the film. That’s because he does.
We didn’t see Act two. My granddaughter was fascinated by the plot potential. The Rain in Spain scene and I Could have Danced All Night were so good. She was most concerned that Eliza end up with Freddy, not Henry. Apparently Henry looked and sounded just like one of her school teachers. Well, Hadley Fraser looks youthful to me, and he was born in 1980, so the same age as her mum. She had thought Keziah Ibe ‘about twenty-two’ and thought it would be DISGUSTING! if she had to kiss someone “as old as” Henry on stage. But we never got to find out. I wasn’t saying anything. Keziah Ibe only graduated this year and gives her playing age as ’16 to 25.’ She says she signed to an agent in March, who put her straight in to audition as Eliza.
On technical issues, Chichester also had some inept (to me) lighting. We were front row stage left, and in the opening street scene a bank of multiple lights mounted stage right were pointed blindingly at us. We were A27 and A28.My granddaughter, further to the middle could cope with it. I looked. It was spilling on a lot of people at the front, stage right (i.e. audience left). I noticed spilling in the other direction in a later scene. It’s extremely hard with that curved stage, but it should be allowed for. I couldn’t see through the glare of lights to see action stage left. Sorry, I’ve done stage lighting. We would never have allowed that.
As they had a full house to try and squeeze into the few remaining evening seats, getting to see it will be hard. To look on the bright side, Half A Sixpence went on to a long London run after Chichester. I’ll be very surprised if this doesn’t.
We only saw part one, but they’d have to go very wrong in Part two to drop below five stars (though cancelling with a technical issue is going badly wrong).
*****
WHAT THE CRITICS SAID
5 star
Daily Mail *****
What’s On Stage *****
Telegraph *****
Sunday Mirror *****
West End Best Friend *****
View From The Gods *****
All That Dazzles *****
4 star
Arifa Akbar, The Guardian ****
LINKS
GEORGE BERNARD SHAW
Candida, Theatre Royal Bath, 2013
Man & Superman, National Theatre, 2014
Pygmalion, Nuffield, Southampton 2016
Mrs Warren’s Profession – Bath 2022.
Mrs Warren’s Profession – NT Live 2025
RACHEL KAVANAUGH
Half A Sixpence, Chichester 2016
An Ideal Husband by Oscar Wilde, Chichester Festival Theatre
The Way of The World by William Congreve, Chichester Festival Theatre
HADLEY FRASER
Magic by David Haig, Chichester 2026
Opening Night, Ivo van Hove, Gielgud London 2024
The Deep Blue Sea, Chichester 2019
The Winter’s Tale, Kenneth Branagh Company 2015
Harlequinade by Terence Rattigan, Kenneth Branagh Company 2015
Coriolanus, NT Live
TONY JAYAWARDENA
London Assurance, National; 2010
Young Marx, Bridge Theatre 2017
Twelfth Night, Globe 2017
The Tempest, RSC 2016
The White Devil, by John Webster RSC 2014
The Roaring Girl, by Dekker & Middleton RSC 2014
Arden of Faversham – RSC 2014
BELINDA LANG
The Country Wife, Chichester 2018
GARY MILNER
Alfred Hitchcok Presents: The Musical, Bath 2025
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