My Fair Lady

The Met’s latest production of My Fair Lady is “comfort theatre” of the highest order. Rather like a well-cooked Sunday roast… it is a nice, safe, conventional interpretation of an established favourite, that does little surprising or inventive with Lerner & Lowe’s beloved musical. But it is nonetheless a deeply satisfying experience, because every aspect of the production has been crafted with meticulous care by a team working at the top of their game.

As soon as the curtain comes up, one is immediately impressed by the fine level of visual detail in the painted backdrops, which are co-ordinated well with a succession of costumes both dramatically striking in their use of colour, and appropriately evocative of the time period in which the piece is set. Barry Hill & Leonie Osborn’s layered set design ensures that scene transitions are swift and flow smoothly. Carmel Vistoli’s choreography is vibrantly energetic without being ostentatious, and always seems to arise naturally out of the regular blocking of the show’s spoken passages.

The cast all bring an infectious level of enthusiasm to their performances, ensuring that such familiar standards as “I Could Have Danced All Night”, “On The Street Where You Live” and “Get Me To The Church On Time” are imbued with a vibrant immediacy. The technical quality of their singing is impeccable, with Jared Frost (as befuddled upper-class suitor Freddy), being a standout in this regard.

Megan Doherty plays Eliza Doolittle with stubborn dignity and a keen, quick-witted intelligence. From the very first scene she impresses upon the audience that this cockney flower-seller may be unsophisticated, but she is not stupid and is, in many ways, more emotionally mature than those society deems her betters. Doherty manages to get her tongue around both Eliza’s cockney accent and her more refined “ladylike” speech without slipping into caricature and incorporates both very well into her singing.

Doherty has a suitably heated chemistry with Brad Martin, who makes for a worthy adversary as Henry Higgins. Martin gleefully relishes playing up Higgins’ flamboyant arrogance, sometimes coming across as oddly childlike in the midst of his tantrums. But every now and then he will drop hints of a wounded vulnerability lurking beneath the pompous bluster. Unfortunately, he did flub a handful of lines on opening night, which took away from the authoritativeness of this supposed expert on human speech. Hopefully, ‘twas just a case of first night nerves and the man has it out of his system now, because emotionally his performance is first rate, especially in his poignant rendition of “I’ve Grown Accustomed To Her Face”.

David Rapkin also flubbed several lines on opening night, but his sensitive performance more than compensated for this and he was suitably affable as Colonel Pickering. Joy Bishop & Anne Doherty play Higgins’ long suffering mother and housekeeper with amusingly weary patience and Frost is endearingly adorkable as Freddy… but predictably enough, Neville Langman steals the show as Eliza’s ne’er-do-well spiv of a father, who gets the liveliest tunes and some of the most twisted wordplay in the whole show. Langman seems to be having the time of his life in the role.

Seats are already selling fast and the level of applause from the nearly-packed house audience on opening night was rapturous, and really it’s no wonder. For fans of “My Fair Lady”, this production is a no-brainer, see it if you can, and for those yet to experience this show live, The Met’s staging would make for a worthy introduction.

Benjamin Orchard.