Lady Still Fair at Fifty in Liverpool???

Lerner and Lowe’s My Fair Lady celebrates its 50th anniversary today (Wednesday, 15 March 2006). The classic musical premiered on 15 March 1956 at the Mark Hellinger Theatre in New York, starring Julie Andrews and Rex Harrison. Its West End premiere followed (with the original cast) in 1958 at the Theatre Royal Drury Lane, where it ran for five-and-a-half years. Trevor Nunn’s multi award-winning revival opened at the National in March 2001, before transferring care of Cameron Mackintosh to Drury Lane itself and running for another two years. Mackintosh’s current UK tour opened in October 2005 at Manchester’s Palace Theatre and continues until 12 August 2006, when it finishes at Wales Millennium Centre in Cardiff, prior to opening in America to mark the musical’s 50th anniversary. At the moment, My Fair Lady is at the Liverpool Empire, and the theatre is hosting a birthday celebration alongside its press performance tonight. At the end of the show, a 50th birthday cake will be cut by the cast, which includes Amy Nuttall, Christopher Cazenove and Gareth Hale. They’ll be joined on stage by Liz Robertson, who played Eliza in the first London revival of the musical, also produced by Mackintosh, in 1979. That production was directed by the show's book writer and lyricist Alan Jay Lerner, who subsequently married Robertson in 1981. Happy birthday!

Got some goss? Contact gossip@whatsonstage.com

Related Content