MY FAIR LADY
photos: Johan Persson
There is little doubt that Chichester Festival Theatre know what they are doing when it comes to staging musical theatre. Past productions have not only wowed festival audiences in West Sussex but gone on to great acclaim in both the West End and on tour, and launched some stellar careers too. Last night was no exception but did go to show one factor that raises what they do way above the bar.
Last year’s production of Top Hat was a delicious confection but a totally frivolous one. The book so light that there was little or no substance and as such nothing for either the company or indeed audiences to sink their teeth into. CFT is at its best when there is substance and one only needs to remember their great musical productions like Assassins, Sweeney Todd, Gypsy, Mack & Mabel, Cabaret, Oliver… the list goes on and on.
My Fair Lady is a show with real flesh on its bones, from the brilliance of George Bernard Shaw’s play Pygmalion and his subsequent reworking of his original for the 1938 film which Alan Jay Lerner and Frederick Loewe then took as the foundations of their musical and in turn their genius in capturing the real essence of the story in song. And what songs, simply skimming the programme before the lights go down one realises that the whole is larded with show stopping numbers and familiar tunes.
The expansive circular thrust of CFT’s stage is empty but for a basket of violets in a tight pin of light, a poignant opening image that is progressively filled and populated by director Rachel Kavanaugh, designer Peter Mackintosh’s clever settings and lavish costumes, and Stephen Mear’s exuberant choreography which drifts seamlessly between elegance and knees up cockney joy. There are too many people involved off stage to name them all but this is clearly a company with a strong and cohesive vision. But it would be remiss to not mention musical director Cat Beveridge and the orchestra for delivering that music so beautifully and in a way that stirred up so many memories of seeing and hearing the show for the first time.
You might by now be wondering about the casting and of course no show is anything without the players. I always love seeing a CFT musical where every member of the company is age appropriate, an ensemble made up of talented players of all ages, ethnicities and not one, as with so many touring companies, where the cast is filled with straight from drama school kids, some in grey wigs! Here we get seasoned professionals playing their age and bringing to the whole not only a reality but also their wealth of experience. Hats off to this brilliant ensemble who really deliver, and in particular the the fine singing of the whole but also the rumbustious cockney barrow boy quartet and perfectly pitched gentility of the servants chorus in their numbers.
Ben Culleton
There are some very special moments in this show and last night we saw and heard a very special performer deliver one such moment. Ben Culleton is surely a star of the future, his beautiful voice effortlessly delivering On The Street Where You Live, what a moment and one that made you wish that the role of Freddy was more expansive.
Tony Jayawardena is splendid as Colonel Pickering, the sympathetic foil to Higgins and delightfully comic too. Belinda Lang is imperious as Mrs Higgins drifting on as if on wheels and delivering every line with razor sharp precision.
Gary Milner and company
Gary Milner is simply joyous as Alfred P. Doolittle and gets the largest ovations mid-performance delivering those two well trodden numbers, With A Little Bit Of Luck and I’m Getting Married In The Morning, with the energy and reverence they need and deserve. It’s a fine comic performance that he makes his own.
Hadley Fraser
It is so good to see Hadley Fraser in a role that he can really get his teeth into this time. His Henry Higgins is a misogynistic monster, a confirmed bachelor, and not in the way that the term has come to be used, and a social misfit. No doubt in modern times he would be diagnosed as having conditions defined by strings of capital letters. Fraser gets it so very right, embracing the drama and delivering the numbers with an arrogance and venom almost to the very end. It is a show stopping performance.
Keziah Ibe
Finally, and very far from least we have Eliza Doolittle, here played by Keziah Ibe. From her first shrill utterances we know that we are in for something very special indeed, squawking at the gents as she tries to sell her flowers, wailing in despair as she battles Higgins as he badgers her vowels, but consistently delivering in her cockney moments a musicality that is so powerful and precise. And when she conquers those vowels, my god, how that voice soars. It’s a very moving performance too, filled with dramatic intent, strength matched with gentility and all this from a young actor making their professional debut, am I allowed to type that cliché ‘A STAR IS BORN’? Oh to hell with any doubt, Ibe is a bright and shining star, fit for any role her future throws at her!
Andrew Kay
15 July
Chichester Festival Theatre
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