Pygmalion Programme

^{All photographs copyright © 2021 Graeme Braidwood Photography}

London; early 20th century. When phonetics professor Henry Higgins happens upon cockney flower girl Eliza Doolittle on a street corner in Covent Garden, he claims he could pass her off as a duchess at an ambassador’s garden party. Little does he know the effect this decision will have on the course of her life, as well as his. Over the next six months, Eliza undergoes intense training to walk, talk and behave like a duchess, much to the admiration and confusion of those around them. In this radical transformation from cockney working class girl to high-society lady, the question soon arises of what is to be done with her afterwards…

This comedy about the absurdities of the English class system remains a literary classic beloved by audiences around the world.

ABOUT THE PLAYWRIGHT

George Bernard Shaw was born in Dublin and moved to London in 1876. He was an incredibly prolific writer, critic, polemic, and activist, winning the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1925  and producing more than sixty plays in his lifetime. Influenced by playwrights such as Ibsen and Chekov, he sought to inject his work with a new realism and use his plays as vehicles for discussion on topics such as politics and religion. He completed Pygmalion in early 1912, and it remains his most popular play. He was greatly inspired by the work of several British phoneticians including Alexander Melville Bell, Alexander J. Ellis, Tito Pagliardini and in particular the famously irascible Henry Sweet. After being performed in Vienna and New York, Pygmalion premiered in London in 1914 in a production directed by Shaw. He remained an outspoken and controversial figure until his death in 1950.