It’s an enjoyable show which bubbles along but never quite comes to the boil. Given the huge cast and the high production values it feels oddly understated in places.
Nonetheless, Amara Okereke is a star turn as a splendid Eliza. She has a wonderful knack with long howls and shrieks suspended on slow dipthongs – very funny and agonising for Higgins (Harry Hadden-Paton). She also sings beautifully, looks magnificent and the dignity she finds at the very end of the show is moving.
There’s a fine performance from Maureen Beattie as Higgins’s housekeeper who can communicate exasperation with her back to the audience just by moving her fingers. And it’s good to see Vanessa Redgrave at 85 still able to command the stage as Higgins’s sensible, sensitive mother.
Beneath them in the pit Gareth Valentine is in charge. The detail in the orchestration is adeptly picked out and I really admired Valentine’s control of the varying tempi and dynamics, especially in I’m Getting Married in the Morning.
There’s some accomplished choral singing in this show too – especially the repeated “Poor Professor Higgins” and the work by Doolittle’s sidekicks in A Little Bit of Luck. And the Ascot scene is always a gift – delivered with aplomb here.
Michael Yeargan’s sets, and the stage management of them, almost deserve a review of their own. A revolving flat which moves backwards and forwards gives us several spaces in Higgins’s home which convincingly open into each other. It’s both ingenious and neat.
www.eno.org/whats-on/my-fair-lady
Review by Susan Elkin