MY FAIR LADY

Springers at the Civic Theatre

19.06.10

A visually stunning My Fair Lady from the Springers team, with some superb stage pictures.

The Ascot scene of course, with its elegance black and white, but also the picture frames for the Overture and Eliza's dream – Wouldn't It Be Luvverly - then artfully reprised for the stylish curtain calls. I liked the way we looked outwards from the church in the opening scene, and Wimpole Street was nicely depicted too, though not quite wide enough for the Civic stage.

Jacqui Tear's production had some ingenious touches, and all the big numbers were given the full treatment. Just You Wait was beautifully staged, as was I Could Have Danced All Night, sung by Springers' excellent Eliza, Olivia Gooding. Good use was made of the auditorium, too, with Doolittle memorably being carried out feet first.

Henry Higgins, the confirmed old bachelor who takes the “squashed cabbage leaf” he finds in Covent Garden and makes her a Mayfair lady, was played with a nice line in misogyny by Anver Anderson. But I was sorry his protégé Zoltan [a scene-stealing Simon Brett] was not inspired to analyse his accent …

His kinder colleague, Colonel Pickering, was Colin Shoard.

Bob Ryall was a diminutive dustman, always good for a knees-up, as in Get Me To The Church, with its lively chorus and spoons obbligato.

Frederick Loewe's classic score was in the capable hands of MD Ian Myers and his thirteen pit musicians.

production photographs by Peter Langman