Pygmalion (Tour – Theatre Royal, Bath)

David Grindley‘s production of Pygmalion's ultimate virtue is that it stops you, just about, from rushing home to listen to Learner and Lowe’s My Fair Lady‘s tunes. George Bernard Shaw may have had no desire to see his works set to song, but it's impossible not to hear some fragments of them when Higgins melancholically mentions growing accustomed to her face, or when Eliza takes her elocution lessons (though there is "no rain in Spain" here).

This production is solid through and through; direction, design and acting all coalescing in a piece that tells the story with pace and clarity and is the funniest version of the play I’ve yet seen. But by placing the emphasis on this humour, some of the darker moments don’t really hit home, and so the debate that was at the forefront of all Shaw’s work is slightly fudged.

It’s got something to do with Alistair McGowen‘s casting as Henry Higgins. It’s a curious performance; a very individualist take which casts Higgins in the role of stroppy teenager with ADHD, and McGowen milks it for what its worth. It is very funny, but also makes Higgins come across as shallow and glib. There seems to be less substance to him then in previous performances, and so the confrontation between him and Eliza (Rachel Barry) in Act 5 lacks juice and steam; the chemistry between them hasn’t really sparked and so the scene begins to drag.

Barry is at her best when playing the cockney flower girl; we fall in love with her independent thought, blowsy nature and vulnerability. When the education is complete, a glacial majesty falls on her, and so we find it more difficult to connect with her even if we still empathise.

Jamie Foreman as Alfred Doolitle, Eliza’s chimney sweep father, who finds himself "ruined by money", steals each scene he appears in, his first exit earning a round from an enthusiastic first night audience, and continuing from there. It’s a fine performance and makes you wonder why he hasn’t done more theatre and got away from his East End gangster typecast he seems to have found in Eastenders, Layer Cake and the rest. There is good work also from Paul Brightwell as Colonel Pickering, Rula Lenska as Mrs Higgins and Charlotte Page as a particularly forthright housekeeper.

Its not a revelatory production, solid rather then thrilling, and the Peter Hall version that played in Bath back in 2007 was a more rounded version for my taste, but the production very successfully makes a case that one should not ignore the source in favour of the more fashionable musical. For Pygmalion still packs a punch a hundred years after its premiere, and even without the songs it still provides a "bloody" good night.

– Kris Hallett