Review: 'Pygmalion'

By Tess Humphrey. 

Before reading our written review listen to our radio preview of the production!

This week in the Barn is a classic, George Bernard Shaw’s Pygmalion. Most of us have seen it before in some format, be it My Fair Lady or even just the Family Guy episode, and we all know the story, don’t we?

That’s what I thought.

In fact, I saw a play I didn’t expect, something more complicated, more tumultuous and less happily-ever-after than I imagined. It was like the hilarity of P G Wodehouse and the emotional conflicts of Alan Bennet combined. As such, I can for once say that 2 hours flew by.

My first impressions weren’t so favourable, it being a bare set, which can often be less than engaging in the black-black-and-more-black Drama Barn, but the set changes were many, and an innovative use of projections to take us to the streets of London, ladies’ tea parties and the embassy ball made it more palatable. Credit should also go to the production for what must have been the immense effort and expense it took to get a tuned piano in the Barn.

It goes without saying that Shaw’s script was flawlessly funny, but what is more impressive is that directors Grace Kelly and Naomi Lawrence gave it a fresh and nuanced handling, without reverting to typical characterisations of chirrupy rosy-cheeked cockneys out-smarting the buffoonish middle-classes. The appearance of the magnificently sleazy Joel Brooks as Eliza’s father was a moment that set the play miles ahead of the simplified screen adaptation.

The cast were probably the most colourful I have seen at Dramasoc, totalling eleven, which is pretty much a full stage in the Barn, and multi-rolling with impressive costume changes. All the performances were slick and hilarious. The brilliantly neurotic performance of Mungo Tatton-Brown as Higgins outshone his on-screen counterpart by miles, even when the (unfortunately frequent) fluffed lines came about, he handled them with a panache that made them just another joke. They were helped by Kelly and Lawrence’s very finely-tuned choreography, which never once felt too staged or lost its energy.

The play is having its last run tonight, and I can recommend it unequivocally.

Hear Tess' full audio review in YorWorld, available now on the ((URY PLAYER))