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Let’s start at the beginning. Except, where is the beginning? The overture is missing! I love an overture. It sets the mood and fills you with anticipation.

But it seems churlish to complain when Rachel Kavanaugh‘s production plunges you straight into the uplifting story of an impoverished cockney flower seller called Eliza Doolittle. She soon encounters and confronts Professor Henry Higgins, an expert in phonetics. The musical establishes their characters from the get-go, so we the audience glimpse from the start the quality of the two stars on which the musical stands or falls.

Higgins is entitled, lacking social skills, self centred, insensitive and misogynistic but in Hadley Fraser’s hands, this is leavened by his child-like enthusiasm. He’s often shown in production as stiff and distant but here his sheer bullheaded enthusiasm- and Groucho Marx-like postures- make him more loveable than expected.

Eliza is feisty and ultra aware of her inferior position in society. Keziah Ibe, making her theatrical debut, gets the mix right. And she nails the first big song of the night Wouldn’t It Be Loverly? That’s a relief because a lot of big songs are coming her way, which she goes on to sing beautifully and with expression.

So it’s game on as Higgins and his friend Colonel Pickering set about transforming this ‘squashed cabbage leaf’ as he calls Eliza into a Lady. It’s worth noting that Eliza initiates the process by offering to pay for lessons- an entrepreneurial move that flies in the face of Higgins’ sexist views, as expressed in Why Can’t A Woman Be More Like A Man?

This is the first time 60 year old Chichester Festival Theatre has presented My Fair Lady. So how do the open spaces of the huge thrust stage with no capacity to fly in scenery convey the spectacle? Not with big sets. The lavish Embassy Ball at which the transformed Eliza triumphs is represented by, in effect, a few standard lamps, the ‘street where she lives’ is two lengths of iron fencing, Ascot Races an empty stage. The Chichester ‘wow’ factor, picking up from the musical’s use of the ensemble to provide a kind of Greek chorus, is to fill the stage with people.

So we have Gary Milner as Eliza’s dustman father Alfred P Doolittle leading an exuberant chorus of around twenty through Stephen Mear’s complex choreography in With A Little Bit Of Luck and I’m Getting Married In The Morning, as well as a more restrained but still impressive circle of racegoers. It’s not completely sparse of scenery.  There is one magnificent set, namely Henry Higgins’ study. Designer Peter McIntosh has created a massive truck that sweeps on and off stage, full of cluttered corners and different levels for the actors to weave and jump through.

It’s easy to understand why some consider My Fair Lady the perfect musical. Lerner and Loewe‘s songs consistently reveal character or advance the narrative, possibly even more so than those of the great Rodgers And Hammerstein who invented the modern musical. And they’re nicely played by a small orchestra under Cat Beveridge.

Keziah Ibe performs the songs with great eloquence. Her high point is also the apex of the musical itself, the moment when she is so excited at getting the pronunciation right in The Rain In Spain. It’s a moment of euphoria for Higgins, Pickering and Eliza that leads her into the incomparable I Could Have Dance All Night.

There is also a lot of dialogue, perhaps this was because Lerner, who wrote the book as well as the lyrics, wanted to give due respect to George Bernard Shaw‘s socialist message in Pygmalion, on which the musical is based. There’s a lot of conversation about class divisions and the importance of language as a marker of class:  Shaw’s point being we’re all people with the same qualities and faults under our disguises. So you need good actors,  which this production has assembled in spades.

In the end, Eliza undergoes more than a superficial transformation. She realises there is more to happiness than a romantic husband and a ‘loverly’ room. And she has learned from those around her that there is more to class than how you speak.  From Colonel Pickering, well played by Tony Jayawardena, she learns politeness and respect, although he is shown to be a bit of a dunderhead. From her father, she acquires cynicism. From Higgins, she not only acquires received English but the value of being honest to oneself and others. She also learns what she doesn’t want when she is courted by the full hearted but empty headed Freddie, nicely played by Ben Culleton. He performs On The Street Where You Live. It’s my favourite song from the musical even if it is, as the programme points out, evidence that ‘his head is too much in the clouds’. I guess I’m an old romantic.

Eliza also observes the women in Higgins’ life as a model for dealing with him. His housekeeper Mrs Pearce and his mother, given strong, humorous portrayals by Finty Williams and Belinda Lang respectively, maintain a balance between loving him and being honest with him.

Eliza initially leaves because she feels unrecognised for her achievement. (Higgins and Pickering take all the credit in the song You Did It, behaving as so often like two little boys). Ultimately Eliza recognises he can’t help being what he is, but, more than that, he has a depth of character that the featherweight Freddie or the pliant Pickering haven’t. Most importantly, in this production, it is clear she realises she wants to be with him as an equal.

For his part, Higgins seems more stuck in his ways and shows less development, but he learns to feel love for another person, or as he puts it, I’ve Grown Accustomed To Her Face. Hadley Fraser delivers the song with great poignancy from the front of the stage, despite the difficulty of bringing emotion to songs that are virtually spoken, this in deference to the non-singing Rex Harrison who first played Higgins. Rex? Forget him. Hadley takes the crown.

As a love story, it’s highly unlikely and potentially offensive to feminists. The problem is exacerbated because the coming together of Higgins and Eliza was not the climax intended by Shaw. Quite the opposite: the professor was to be left a sad and sorry man by the newly independent woman. However, Rachel Kavanaugh, supported by her fabulous cast, makes it work by avoiding extreme portrayals and emphasising friendship and respect as the basis for their relationship. Well done, Ms Kavanaugh, You Did It!

Paul was given a review ticket by the theatre.