United Kingdom Loewe/Lerner, My Fair Lady: Soloists, The Questors Theatre Dancers, Chorus and Orchestra / Tom Arnold (musical director), The Questors Theatre, Ealing, 28.3.2025. (AK)
Despite my advanced age and several decades in music, this was my first encounter with My Fair Lady. I read George Bernard Shaw’s Pygmalion a long while back, but Alan Jay Lerner’s (lyrics) and Frederick Loewe’s music, that is their musical version based on Shaw’s play, was new to me. I hasten to state that, without doubt, I could not have had a better introduction to My Fair Lady as the production now presented by The Questors company.
Also new to me was The Questors Theatre which seems to me an Oasis under the ever-darkening clouds of diminishing financial support for cultural possibilities. Functioning since 1929, they are still going strong providing theatrical traditions and facilities to the people in Ealing and beyond. Each year they put on about 20 plays: a mixture of dramas, comedies, period pieces and their popular Christmas Panto. They have two theatre spaces: the 350-seater Judi Dench Playhouse and the smaller 100-capacity Studio theatre. Last but not least, they run an acting Academy and a Youth Theatre.
This My Fair Lady is an amateur production (running until 5 April), presented by arrangement with Music Theatre International (MTI). However, there is nothing amateur about the performance, far from it.
The performers and those contributing to the performance clearly put their heart, soul, time and possibly also money into the proceedings but what I was privileged to see on the stage was wholly professional. Indeed, I wonder how people having demanding day jobs can produce such high standard performances. Being new to the musical, after the show I searched the Internet and looked at professional performances as well as the famous film version with Audrey Hepburn and Rex Harrison. Much to my surprise, Questors won in terms of concept as well as delivery.
By virtue of changing her English pronunciation, Shaw’s Professor Higgins and his friend Colonel Pickering set out to change Eliza, a cockney flower-selling girl, into a lady. Shaw gives us an insight into the lives of various classes of English society, poking fun throughout. Arguably Shaw advocates equality for all and this concept seems to have been beautifully realised on Questors’s stage (and auditorium when some of the action was transferred there). Dances were choreographed to show the beauty of folk dancing as well as elegant Court dancing, the scenery and costumes also showed respect towards people of different classes.
The ending of Pygmalion and My Fair Lady is ambiguous and may even differ according to productions. Eliza, no longer an uneducated lower-class girl but not really belonging to any other class, might or might not return to Professor Higgins, their relationship might or might not blossom. Director Michelle Spencer follows the Alan Jay Lerner ending of return but with a subdued ending which leaves the future in doubt.
The cast is excellent all round. Kirsty King (Eliza) and Ant Foran (Higgins) kept their energy throughout, yet each have seven or eight songs and long stage dialogues to deliver. It is hard to believe that this is the first time after twenty-five years that Foran took a singing role, but it is not hard to believe that King is a regular jazz singer. Both portrayed their character’s psychological development with consummate skills while their interaction with each other as well as in ensembles with chorus and smaller groups was exemplary. And both delivered deeply moving as well as bravura performances!
David Leonard (Pickering) seemed to be having a great time presenting the role’s quirks, his duets/interaction with Foran’s Higgins were fully credible. Robert Vass (Eliza’s father) was mesmerising, funny and a perfect mirror to the stupidity of class differences. Luke Baverstock’s pleasant tenor voice was well suited to the role of love-sick Freddy.
The smaller roles too were all delivered with gusto and care, although to my Hungarian ears Stephan Mirré (in the role of the Hungarian Professor Zoltan Karpathy) did not necessarily sound Hungarian. Full credit to the ten-piece band and their musical director Tom Arnold: it was not easy to be in sync from behind the stage, but they managed.
I thoroughly enjoyed the sound design during the Ascot gavotte: while the chorus sang on the stage looking towards the auditorium, sounds of galloping horses was heard from various parts of the auditorium.
In my long years of review writing, I always complained about this and that. Here I can only lament that it took me a few minutes to get used to the performers being miked and that, for me, the 7.45 pm start and the 11pm finish was a tad late.
Agnes Kory
For more about My Fair Lady at The Questors Theatre click here.
Production:
Director/Choreographer – Michelle Spencer
Assistant Director – Anna Fiscus
Set designer – Robert Spencer
Costume designers – Carla Evans, Sue Peckitt, Nicola Thomas
Lighting designer – Martin Walton
Assistant Lighting designer – Callum Hartnup-Williams
Sound designer/Operator – Dan Tigg
Co-Sound designer/Operator – Ben Greenwood
Cast:
Eliza Doolittle – Kirsty King
Henry Higgins – Ant Foran
Colonel Pickering – David Leonard
Freddy Eynsford-Hill – Luke Baverstock
Alfred P. Doolittle – Robert Vass
Mrs Pearce – Leslie McCall
Mrs Higgins – Patricia O’Brian
Harry – Ben Connaughton
Jamie – Tim Williams
Mrs Eynsford-Hill – Dorothy Lawson
Mrs Hopkins – Alexandra Upton
Professor Zoltan Karpathy – Stephan Mirré