LondonTheatre1

London Theatre: Tickets Reviews | News | West End | Off-West End | UK Touring Productions

Book Tickets for London Shows
  • Home
  • Top Selling Shows
    • Musicals
    • & Juliet
    • Anything Goes
    • Back To The Future
    • Cabaret at the Kit Kat Club
    • Come From Away
    • Dear Evan Hansen
    • Dirty Dancing
    • Frozen The Musical
    • Heathers
    • Jersey Boys
    • Les Miserables
    • Mamma Mia
    • Mary Poppins
    • Matilda the Musical
    • My Fair Lady
    • Moulin Rouge
    • Only Fools and Horses
    • Pretty Woman the Musical
    • Six the Musical
    • The Book of Mormon
    • The Drifters Girl
    • The Lion King
    • The Phantom of the Opera
    • Tina the Musical
    • Wicked
    • Popular Plays in London
      • A Christmas Carol
      • Harry Potter and the Cursed Child
      • The Mousetrap
      • The Woman in Black
      • Witness for the Prosecution
    • London Theatres
      • Seating Plans
      • Adelphi Theatre
      • Ambassadors Theatre
      • Duke of York’s Theatre
      • Fortune Theatre
      • Harold Pinter Theatre
      • Lyceum Theatre
      • New Wimbledon Theatre
      • New Wimbledon Theatre Studio
      • Piccadilly Theatre
      • Richmond Theatre
      • Trafalgar Theatre
  • News
    • Interviews
  • Reviews
  • ATG Tickets
    • Alexandra Theatre
    • Aylesbury Waterside Theatre
    • Brighton Theatre Royal
    • Bristol Hippodrome
      • Bristol Theatre Seating Plan
    • Edinburgh Playhouse
    • Glasgow Theatre Royal
    • Grand Opera House York
    • King’s Theatre Glasgow
    • Kit Kat Club London
    • Leas Cliff Hall
    • Liverpool Empire
    • Manchester Opera House
    • Manchester Palace Theatre
    • Milton Keynes Theatre
    • New Theatre Oxford
    • New Victoria Theatre Woking
    • New Wimbledon Theatre
    • New Wimbledon Theatre Studio
    • Princess Theatre Torquay
    • Regent Theatre Stoke
    • Rhoda McGaw Theatre
    • Richmond Theatre
    • Stockton Globe
    • Sunderland Empire
    • Swansea Arena
    • Victoria Hall Hanley Stoke
  • Dancewear
  • Newsletter
Home » Reviews » My Fair Lady at London Coliseum

My Fair Lady at London Coliseum

May 20, 2022 Last updated: July 2, 2022 2:15 pm By Chris Omaweng

It’s a show of its time. Well, it isn’t really – it’s a show first produced in the 1950s, with this production placing the action in 1913. The set changes seem more colossal than they are, perhaps because of the pedestrian pace in which they occur, and the lush orchestrations, ably supplied by the English National Opera Orchestra – conducted by Alex Parker at the performance I attended (the programme lists the musical director/conductor as Gareth Valentine) – play their part in ensuring the three-hour running time very much feels like it.

Harry Hadden-Paton as Professor Henry Higgins, Amara Okereke as Eliza Doolittle and Malcolm Sinclair as Colonel Pickering. Credit Marc Brenner.
Harry Hadden-Paton as Professor Henry Higgins, Amara Okereke as Eliza Doolittle and Malcolm Sinclair as Colonel Pickering. Credit Marc Brenner.

That’s not entirely a bad thing in itself, as audiences will feel as though they’ve been given their money’s worth. Eliza Doolittle (Amara Okereke), in this production, is black as well as working-class, which gives the storyline an added dimension, if one wishes to interpret it as such. Here, a black person is effectively trained by a white professor, Henry Higgins (the aptly named Harry Hadden-Paton, for whom “hurricanes hardly ever happen”), to behave in a more socially acceptable fashion, to the point of learning to enunciate in a seemingly upper-class manner.

I suspect people looking for something different are going to come away feeling they might as well have not bothered being financially and geographically inconvenienced and stayed home to watch the motion picture of My Fair Lady instead. It’s an assured revival, and it’s a largely faithful one, with nothing in the way of nods to the world as it is today, in a departure from certain revivals of certain other shows, that like to give audiences hooks to latch onto. There’s nothing wrong with that: this production is confident enough to not feel the need to allude to the present day, which makes the show feel like escapism even though Covent Garden and Wimpole Street were and are identifiable central London locations.

Malcolm Sinclair’s Colonel Pickering and Dame Vanessa Redgrave’s Mrs Higgins are delightful supporting characters – the former counteracts Henry’s somewhat abrasive manner, while the latter has some withering put-downs, delivered exquisitely. Redgrave’s use of a walking stick on stage (in a song-and-dance musical, no less) is indicative of physical frailty, and in the end, provides a contrast between that and an evidently sharp mind.

Stephen K Amos, who plays Eliza’s father Alfred, has brilliant timing, presumably on account of his work in comedy, though one gets the feeling that he too would benefit from elocution lessons from Professor Higgins. Somewhat ironically, Okereke’s Eliza has a more convincing RP accent than a Cockney one. It was a delight to hear such a beautiful soprano voice glide through ‘I Could Have Danced All Night’, and she demonstrates perfect comic timing in a series of greetings and salutations with miscellaneous members of the establishment at the Ascot racecourse.

Hadden-Paton, meanwhile, puts in a very physical performance, sometimes eliciting raucous laughter from the audience, and always a reflection of a mind racing at top speed. Maureen Beattie’s Mrs Pearce, Henry’s housekeeper (more ‘aitches’ for Eliza to get her hurting head around) is stoicism personified, and Sharif Afifi as Eliza’s besotted love interest, Freddy Eynsford-Hill, hams up his performance to the max. It works, though, as the character is overdoing it in his expressions of affection.

The costumes (Catherine Zuber) are all stylish and appropriate. Likewise, the choreography (Christopher Gattelli) never seems out of place. Seasoned theatregoers will, I suspect, have seen more pleasurable productions before. That doesn’t stop this one from being a decent night out. “Loverly”, even.

4 stars

Review by Chris Omaweng

My Fair Lady tells the story of Eliza Doolittle, a young Cockney flower seller, and Henry Higgins, a linguistics professor who is determined to transform her into his idea of a “proper lady”. But who is really being transformed?

With a book and lyrics by Alan Jay Lerner and music by Frederick Loewe, MY FAIR LADY boasts a score including the classic songs “I Could Have Danced All Night,” “Get Me to the Church on Time,” “Wouldn’t It Be Loverly,” “On the Street Where You Live,” “The Rain in Spain,” and “I’ve Grown Accustomed to Her Face.”

Adapted from George Bernard Shaw’s play and Gabriel Pascal’s motion picture Pygmalion, Lerner & Loewe’s MY FAIR LADY premiered on Broadway in March 1956, winning 6 Tony Awards including Best Musical, and becoming the longest-running musical in Broadway history at the time. Following this success, the production transferred to London in 1958, where it played in the West End for five and a half years.

James L. Nederlander, Jamie Wilson, Hunter Arnold, Crossroads Live, Playful Productions and the English National Opera present the Lincoln Center Theater production of Lerner & Loewe’s MY FAIR LADY. Book and Lyrics by Alan Jay Lerner, Music by Frederick Loewe, sets by Michael Yeargan, costumes by Catherine Zuber, lighting by Donald Holder, sound by Marc Salzberg, hair & wigs by Tom Watson, musical direction by Gareth Valentine, musical supervision by Ted Sperling, choreography by Christopher Gattelli, directed by Bartlett Sher.

My Fair Lady
London Coliseum, St Martin’s Lane, London WC2N 4ES
7 May – 27 August 2022

Buy Tickets

Comments

  1. Edith Graham says

    May 22, 2022 at 12:50 pm

    My Fair Lady is one of my top all time films and also on my top to see at the theatre. After seeing this I was quite disappointed with highs and lows, highs being the vocals of all the cast was spot on, and Higgins was brilliant, unfortunately the lows outweigh the nighs, why they had to add a scene that wasnt in the original I don’t know and the show was far too long. A tip from and avid theatre goer, 1, dont bore the audience with an unnecessary lengthy production, 2, dont add a scene that isnt part of an original story line.

  2. Michele T says

    May 31, 2022 at 10:58 am

    I thought the show was a real disappointment, it brought nothing original and quite frankly the performers were ok but nothing special. Go watch the film – much better and much cheaper.

Sister Act Tickets

Invisible: Written and performed by Nikhil Parmar

Nikhil Parmar’s one-man show, originally written as a TV pilot, manages to touch on a wide range of themes from Islamophobia to modern fatherhood with … [Read More...]

Figure presents a semi-staged performance of Handel’s Serse

Handel’s 1738 opera Serse (or Xerxes) is an exploration of power, love and human frailty. King Serse falls in love with the voice of his brother … [Read More...]

Lea Salonga Dream Again, Royal Albert Hall

Lea Salonga has her fans. She also has some superfans, the ones who yell, “I love you Lea!” at almost every opportunity. If that wasn’t enough, there … [Read More...]

Singin’ in the Rain at New Wimbledon Theatre

I have no hesitation in saying that the 1952 movie “Singin’ in the Rain” and its 1985 stage version is one of the greatest musicals of all time, … [Read More...]

Metamorphosis at the Lyric Theatre, London | Review

There are, Maria Caruso was keen to emphasise in a post-show discussion, no wrong answers when it comes to responding to Metamorphosis or even … [Read More...]

London Theatre 1 and London Theatre One are Registered Trademarks Copyright 2022 www.LondonTheatre1.com
By using our website you’re confirming that you’re happy to accept our use of cookies.
Privacy Policy & Cookies - Advertising - About Us - Newsletter - Contact Us

As an Amazon Associate our website receives a commission from qualifying purchases from Amazon.