My Fair Lady review – lovable musical transforms exuberantly beyond expectation

Chichester Festival theatreThe well-worn rags to riches story blossoms beyond its generic setup when Eliza Doolittle and Henry Higgins’ relationship develops an emotional truthFor the first hour, this production of Lerner and Loewe’s musical glides along smoothly enough; the cockney flower girl sings of rain in Spain, the elocution professor rails at her for murdering the English language with her guttersnipe vowels, and the whirligig of Eliza Doolittle’s transformation from “squashed cabbage leaf” into lady carries you along.Set against Dickensian lanterns and Henry Higgins’ hardwood bachelor study, its lovable songs (Wouldn’t It Be Loverly?, With a Little Bit o’ Luck, I Could Have Danced All Night and so on …) seem to emanate from a generic Musical Theatre Land – an anodyne setting entirely dissociated from the world of today. The intention, it seems, is safe, nostalgic entertainment. Continue reading...