The latest Australian production of My Fair Lady, directed by Dame Julie Andrews, is one of the most spectacular productions to reach a Melbourne stage in years.
Everything about My Fair Lady is class. The world-renowned actors, the attention to detail with the original Cecil Beaton costumes and the original sets by Oliver Smith, all make this production something you would normally travel to Broadway or the West End to see.
Downton Abbey star Charles Edwards plays Henry Higgins, a character who by today’s standards would be labelled a male chauvinist pig.
Melbourne born, London based Anna O’Byrne is Eliza Doolittle, the cockney flower girl from the wrong side of town who Higgins wagers he can train to pass as a lady.
Both Edwards and O’Byrne have the star factor of the show with Anna especially taking minute direction from Dame Julie to stay completely loyal to the original character while at the same time making it her own.
Charles Edwards somehow managed to present the chauvinist Higgins equally as a flawed individual that despite his character’s personality you also felt sorry for who the man was.
The two characters who make the show real are Australian theatre royalty Reg Livermore as Eliza’s flawed father Alfred and Robyn Niven as the classy Mrs Higgins.
If there is such as thing as a “Best and Fairest’ player in theatre then that award goes to Mark Vincent. The Shire’s own Mark Vincent is a massive star on the rise in Australia. At 23 years of old Mark has already achieved eight Top 20 albums. The former child star tenor performs timeless music setting him up for a lifelong career performing on stage or in the recording studio. Mark played Freddy, the young man charmed by Eliza but forced to wait in line.
My Fair Lady, and its original story Pygmalion, contributed so much to culture. The voice exercise “the rain in Spain stays mainly in the plain” originated in the 1938 film of the Pygmalion play but was not in the original play.
When the original 1956 production debuted Walter Kerr in the New York Herald Tribune said “My Fair Lady is wise, witty, and winning. In short, a miraculous musical.” In 61 years, nothing has changed.
