MY FAIR LADY

Chichester Festival Theatre

★★★★

“a production full of theatrical confidence, energy and affection”

The transformation of a Covent Garden flower seller into a society lady may be at the heart of My Fair Lady, but Lerner and Loewe’s celebrated musical has always been about more than manners and pronunciation. Adapted from George Bernard Shaw’s Pygmalion, its sparkling wit and unforgettable melodies have secured its place in the repertoire, yet beneath the elegance lies a sharper examination of class, identity and the ways society decides who belongs.

Following the success of Oliver! before its West End transfer, Chichester once again turns to a musical centred on social mobility, exploring how class can shape not only where people live but how they are heard and judged. Director Rachel Kavanaugh returns to similarly class-conscious territory after her acclaimed Half a Sixpence at Chichester. The story follows Eliza Doolittle (Keziah Ibe), a flower seller whose chance encounter with phonetics expert Henry Higgins (Hadley Fraser) leads to a wager that becomes far more complicated than either expects. Convinced he can transform her into a lady fit for society, Higgins treats Eliza as both pupil and experiment, but their relationship becomes increasingly complicated as Eliza begins to question the person she is becoming and whether Higgins has the right to decide her future.

Where this production excels is in its depiction of working-class life. The Covent Garden scenes are filled with infectious energy, with Ibe joined by the Cockney quartet (Jonathan Bourne, Nic Cain, Joe Henry and Kody Mortimer) in a joyous “Wouldn’t It Be Loverly?” that establishes the production’s warmth and vitality. Gary Milner is equally memorable as Alfred P. Doolittle, embracing the character’s ducking and diving energy and physical comedy in “With a Little Bit of Luck” and a show-stopping “Get Me to the Church on Time” that brings the evening to a deserved pause for applause.

Fraser’s Henry Higgins is a fascinatingly difficult figure. Charismatic, intelligent and commanding, he captures both Higgins’ brilliance and his arrogance, cruelty and emotional immaturity, resisting any temptation to make him simply charming. His relationship with Eliza remains compelling precisely because the production never reduces it to a straightforward romantic transformation story.

Making her professional stage debut, Keziah Ibe faces the considerable challenge of one of musical theatre’s most iconic roles. She is particularly engaging in the early scenes, capturing Eliza’s humour, resilience and determination with confidence. As the role moves into the more complex stages of Eliza’s journey, some elements of that development feel less fully realised than the production’s many other strengths. However, Ibe remains a compelling stage presence, and her clear soprano voice and evident potential suggest a performer with an exciting future ahead.

Around them, the supporting cast adds considerable texture. Tony Jayawardena brings warmth and gentle humour to Colonel Pickering, providing a contrast to Higgins’ more abrasive personality. Belinda Lang is excellent as Mrs Higgins, elegant and quietly commanding when dealing with her son’s behaviour. Finty Williams adds grounded practicality as Mrs Pearce, while Ben Culleton gives Freddie Eynsford-Hill unexpected charm, particularly in “On the Street Where You Live”.

Peter McKintosh’s set and costume designs capture the changing worlds and social divisions of Edwardian society, from the bustle and individuality of Covent Garden to the controlled elegance of Ascot and the Embassy Ball. Higgins’ study dominates the thrust stage as both workplace and battleground for the central relationship, while economical staging, lighting and carefully chosen props allow other locations to emerge. Stephen Mear’s choreography brings each setting vividly to life, from the exuberant Cockney street sequences to the precision of Ascot and the elegance of the Embassy Ball. Under Cat Beveridge’s musical direction, the fourteen-piece orchestra brings warmth and richness to Lerner and Loewe’s enduring score.

Beautifully staged and driven by Lerner and Loewe’s unforgettable score, Kavanaugh’s revival reminds us why My Fair Lady has endured for almost seventy years. Beneath the elegance and humour is a story that continues to question whether transformation comes from changing how others see you or from discovering your own sense of self. While the central journey does not always achieve the emotional complexity it promises, this remains a production full of theatrical confidence, energy and affection for a musical whose questions about class, ambition and the price of reinvention remain surprisingly relevant.

MY FAIR LADY

Chichester Festival Theatre

Reviewed on 15th July 2026

by Ellen Cheshire

Photography by Johan Persson

MY FAIR LADY

★★★½

“a warm celebration of two extraordinary people”

Nestled behind the ornate facades of Piccadilly is a charming secret, Jermyn Street Theatre. Designed as a studio space that’s easily accessible to the West End, with merely 70 seats, the theatre guarantees its audience is never more than four rows away from the action. It’s a fitting backdrop for Dear Liar, an intimate story which travels the forty-year correspondence between two towering theatrical egos, George Bernard Shaw and Mrs Patrick Campbell. Brought to life in Jerome Kilty’s epistolary play, Shaw and Campbell became friends, collaborators, and something more complex—the subjects of one of theatre history’s most celebrated letter exchanges.

There’s a certain geographical poetry to staging a play about Shaw (Alan Turkington) and Mrs Campbell (Rachel Pickup) just round the corner from where their work would have debuted. Kilty’s script dances through their correspondence—covering the opening of Pygmalion, the ebb and flow of devotion, the careful construction of self. As a piece, it revels in its meta-textuality: their letters to each other are performances in themselves, as intimate as they are curated. When they eventually debate and argue over the publishing of these letters, the layers multiply—private becomes public becomes theatrical becomes our interpretation of both.

Yet converting letters into dialogue brings inevitable clunkiness at moments. The language itself is often magnificent, but the epistolary format resists easy dramatisation. Kilty’s script does well to link the letters together into conversation where possible, but it soars highest when abandoning the letters entirely—imagining, for instance, Shaw following Mrs Campbell to the seaside, or their Pygmalion rehearsal together, a comic reversal of the famous play where instead the grand dame struggles deliciously to sound like a flower girl. Pickup seizes the moment, her faux attempts at cockney earning some of the night’s biggest laughs.

Pickup overall is strong as Mrs Pat, capturing both her vanity and her vulnerability, bringing warmth and imperious grace to a woman who knew her own worth. Turkington delivers a solid performance as Shaw, though at times he feels a touch too even-keeled for a man known for his firebrand polemic. There are glimpses of Shaw’s childish capriciousness and intellectual fire, particularly in his anger at a young soldier’s pointless death, but they never fully ignite.

Stella Powell-Jones’ direction ensures the piece never succumbs to static staging, finding visual interest throughout. She uses the space inventively, varying levels and sightlines to keep the two-hander dynamic. A particularly affecting moment sees Mrs Pat materialise behind a curtain as Shaw describes her first appearance in Hollywood, the staging rendering her almost ghost-like as he mythologises her legend.

Tom Paris’ design work across set and costume yields uneven results. His drapes section the playing area deftly, conjuring immediate worlds whilst sparse staging elements anchor the space. The costuming, however, stumbles in its attempt to blend modern and period. It succeeds for Mrs Pat, but Shaw is saddled with a graphic undershirt beneath his waistcoat that reads more high street than Shavian, drawing the eye for the wrong reasons. Chris McDonnell’s lighting offers more assured work, bathing the stage in soft pink warmth, though Harry Blake’s typewriter sound design veers between effective and unnecessarily intrusive.

At its heart, Dear Liar offers comfort theatre at its best—a warm celebration of two extraordinary people, presenting a mosaic of their lives that illuminates the humans behind the legends. It’s truly a theatre lover’s play, holding a bittersweet irony at its centre: Mrs Patrick Campbell’s performances were ephemeral, lost to time as all theatre must be, yet through these letters her words endure alongside Shaw’s. Productions like this preserve what the stage could not—her voice, her wit, her humanity—even as she protests to Shaw her inability to match his way with words. It may not break new ground, but it delivers wit, tenderness, and theatrical charm in abundance.

Tag Archives: George Bernard Shaw

MY FAIR LADY

★★★★

Chichester Festival Theatre

MY FAIR LADY

Chichester Festival Theatre

★★★★

“a production full of theatrical confidence, energy and affection”