Review: My Fair Lady is 'loverly'

Lauren Crisp is a book editor, writer and keen follower of arts and culture. She reviews theatre and cultural events in and around the district in her spare time. 

You can contact Lauren on laurencrispwriter@gmail.com. 

Leeds Playhouse’s summer musical is a co-production with Opera North – a fourth-time collaboration for this power couple – set in the theatre’s impressive Quarry space. My Fair Lady tells the story of Eliza Doolittle, a cockney flower girl who takes speech lessons from a professor of linguistics who has put a bet on being able to make her 'more genteel'.

The production is a pitch-perfect example of musical theatre, bursting with life and depth, with all the familiar tunes to enjoy, from Wouldn’t It Be Loverly? to I Could Have Danced All Night and On The Street Where You Live.

Sumptuous design by Madeleine Boyd makes for a visual feast. Remaining largely faithful to its source material, the audience is transported to 1910s London with both its extravagance – all petticoats and top hats – and its squalor – all grimy streets and open drains – on display, reflecting this city rooted in class divides.

The Orchestra of Opera North, conducted by Oliver Rundell, is sublime; delivering Lerner and Loewe’s original score out of sight of the audience, its presence could not have been felt more, bestowing a true feeling of occasion upon the production. 

It meets flawlessly with its colleague, the perfectly cast Chorus of Opera North, whose operatic vocals marry with the play’s regency feel. Soprano Katie Bird is an astounding Eliza, her vocals rich and adroit, her performance of I Could Have Danced All Night absolute perfection.

Bird’s Eliza is multi-faceted – self-empowered while self-doubting – and along with John Hopkins as an excellent Henry Higgins, her plummy professor, the pair form the centre of a marvellously told tale that, on the surface, is a Cinderella-like one of rags-to-riches, but which, underneath, is much more complex.

Unpicking themes of class, gender and relationships with a careful magnifying glass, the play’s ending remains intentionally ambiguous, leaving its audience, as it departs the theatre, to ponder.

My Fair Lady is on at Leeds Playhouse until Saturday, June 29.