“My Fair Lady”, Chichester Festival Theatre

Mark Shenton in West Sussex
★★★★☆
16 July 2026

Alan Jay Lerner (book and lyrics, adapted closely from George Bernard Shaw’s Pygmalion) and Frederick Loewe (music) premiered their most successful musical My Fair Lady on Broadway exactly 70 years ago.

Keziah Ibe and Hadley Fraser.
Photo credit: Johan Persson.

There have been countless revivals since that original production; it was most recently seen in London in 2022 in a limited summer run at the London Coliseum of a production that originated at Broadway’s Vivian Beaumont Theatre in 2018.

That London iteration featured a glowing and glorious Amara Okereke, a then-recent graduate of West London’s Arts Educational School (ArtsEd) in the pivotal role of Eliza Doolittle, the cockney Covent Garden flower girl who is transformed, in a matter of weeks, into a society woman by Henry Higgins, a professor of linguistics who lives in Wimpole Street.

This brand-new staging coincidentally stars another recent ArtsEd graduate Keziah Ibe, making her professional debut on Chichester’s wide, deep stage, and more than holding the wrap-around space with her radiant soprano and delightful presence. The shimmering joy she brings to “I could have danced all night” is irresistible.

But while it is Eliza’s rapid transformation that invariably forms the dramatic impetus of the show, it is the more subtle transformation of Henry Higgins from confirmed and confined bachelor — his independence worn and guarded as fiercely as the determined, wilful eccentricity that he has engineered to protect it — that gives the piece true heft.

Photo credit: Johan Persson.

And here, Hadley Fraser — seen earlier this season at Chichester as Harry Houdini in the less than magical new play Magic — brings his considerable acting chops as well as his easy singing to a role that he makes entirely his own. There is a palpable sadness and regret to “I’ve grown accustomed to her face”, the yearning song when Higgins realises he may have lost Eliza.

But watching Rachel Kavanaugh’s rich, sumptuous revival that forms the musical centrepiece of this year’s Chichester Festival Theatre season, it is not just a sense of loveliness, liveliness and luxuriousness that sweeps over a completely enraptured audience, but also a realisation of the show’s timelessness and effortless class.

Neither time nor repeated viewings have ever dulled either its charms or its abrasive edges, as the script — largely informed by Shaw’s original play, sometimes verbatim — paints a vivid portrait of class consciousness (a familiar English obsession) and sexism, both of which are still (regrettably) very live issues today.

An exemplary supporting cast brings all of this into close and generous focus, with particularly astute and well-coloured portraits from Tony Jayawadena as Higgins’s professional sidekick Colonel Pickering, Finty Williams as Higgins’s sympathetic, permanently flustered, housekeeper Mrs Pearce, and Belinda Lang as the professor’s mother Mrs Higgins.

There is also a truly scene-stealing performance from Gary Milner as Eliza’s dustman father Alfred P Doolittle (whose two irresistibly jaunty Cockney celebration songs “With a little bit of luck” and “Get me to the church on time” provide probably the show’s most ecstatic moments of theatrical release and energy) and a charming and mellifluous turn from Ben Culleton as Eliza’s posh suitor Freddy Eynsford-Hill whose impassioned “On the street where you live” closes out the first act with a poignant and powerful statement of unrequited romantic attachment.

All are supported by the richly organic and detailed choreography of Stephen Mear, and the luxurious sounds of the orchestra, housed in a platform over the stage, under the musical direction of Cat Beveridge.

The spectacular costumes (particularly for the famous scene set at Ascot) and beautiful sets, both designed by Peter McKintosh, provide an unending sense of delight and surprise.

The show is regularly cited amongst the all-time classics of musical theatre, and this production proves just why it endures so robustly.