My Fair Lady is a true classic musical. The film version is a bank holiday favourite and it was well recieved when Trevor Nunn revived it in the West End a few years back with Jonathan Pryce and Martine McCutcheon.
Abingdon have chosen well for their Jubilee celebration, My Fair Lady will be well received by many of their oldest supporters and by some new ones also, hopefully! However what the West End version did that AOS struggle with is streamlining the show, at 3 hours 10 minutes long I did find my bottom becoming a little numb and the incessant scene changes became frustrating. I wonder if there could have been more done to simplify the action or the use of the set?
The 'principals' as they are refered to in the programme are all strong, Jon Crowley is convincing as Higgins and Hannah Nye sings and acts well as Eliza. Chris Biggs' Pickering is suitably stuffy and Keith Goddard gives a nice caricatured rendition of Doolittle. For me the stand out however was Wendy Lewis, her perfect rendition of Higgins' mother is seen far too little for my liking.
The ensemble lacked some biting energy and a few mouths were moving but I was pretty sure the same words were not being sung as everyone else! Maybe this will improve as confidence rises throughout the week. And the choreography was good in places and bizarre in others, their was little Gavotting to the Ascot Gavotte and Doolittle struggled to do all the dancing and the singing, his lung capacity failing.
This sounds a little as though I did not enjoy the evening, I did, the show is impossible not to enjoy, the script is fabulous and the score sublime, the orchestra (conducted by Musical Director Chris Payne) were spot on, the tightness and crispness of their execution of the music was a joy! If there are still tickets available this is an entertaining, if slightly flawed evening's entertainment.
Abingdon have chosen well for their Jubilee celebration, My Fair Lady will be well received by many of their oldest supporters and by some new ones also, hopefully! However what the West End version did that AOS struggle with is streamlining the show, at 3 hours 10 minutes long I did find my bottom becoming a little numb and the incessant scene changes became frustrating. I wonder if there could have been more done to simplify the action or the use of the set?
The 'principals' as they are refered to in the programme are all strong, Jon Crowley is convincing as Higgins and Hannah Nye sings and acts well as Eliza. Chris Biggs' Pickering is suitably stuffy and Keith Goddard gives a nice caricatured rendition of Doolittle. For me the stand out however was Wendy Lewis, her perfect rendition of Higgins' mother is seen far too little for my liking.
The ensemble lacked some biting energy and a few mouths were moving but I was pretty sure the same words were not being sung as everyone else! Maybe this will improve as confidence rises throughout the week. And the choreography was good in places and bizarre in others, their was little Gavotting to the Ascot Gavotte and Doolittle struggled to do all the dancing and the singing, his lung capacity failing.
This sounds a little as though I did not enjoy the evening, I did, the show is impossible not to enjoy, the script is fabulous and the score sublime, the orchestra (conducted by Musical Director Chris Payne) were spot on, the tightness and crispness of their execution of the music was a joy! If there are still tickets available this is an entertaining, if slightly flawed evening's entertainment.