Imagine a hot, mid-summer night in London. (Yes, hot - which even in England is not unreasonable.) You’d probably expect a relatively recently revamped theatre to have taken this into account, but apparently glowing is the way to be in the Old Vic.
Despite this, we did still enjoy Peter Hall’s witty version of Pygmalion. I can’t say it was a perfect production – performances were rather uneven – but once we’d finished wiping the sweat from our eyes we did find ourselves amused.
The tale of a flower girl with gumption who is outwardly transformed into a duchess by an irascible old professor slides sharp barbs into most of the characters – especially the female ones. Thankfully Michelle Dockery displayed excellent comic timing and quite a lot of heart as Eliza Doolittle.
Unfortunately Una Stubbs as Mrs. Pearce, the professor’s moralistic housekeeper, was accompanied by such hypnotic skirt-swishing that it appeared she needed to be bumped up the NHS list for a hip replacement. She also seemed to be channelling Barbara Windsor. Oo-er missus, etc. By contrast Barbara Jefford, who had many of the best one-liners as Professor Henry Higgins’ sharply observant mother, sadly faded into the background far too often.
The Good
Michelle Dockery’s Eliza, Tim Pigott-Smith’s brilliantly physical performance, Tony Haygarth’s speed-speaking Alfred Doolittle, the gorgeous costume and set design.
The Bad
“Authentic” (read: lengthy) set changes, the Carry On aura, the slight numbness-of-arse after two and a half hours.
The Ugly
The ripeness of the audience.
The Venue
Despite the ventilation issues, which seemed to improve after the chorus of interval complaints, the Old Vic is a really attractive lilac-hued venue particularly suited to period productions like Pygmalion or the superior production of The Philadelphia Story I saw there some time ago.
After many closures and renovations, it’s settled on an elegant, muted Art Deco look which suits the relatively generous capacity (just over a thousand). My fiancé exclaimed with delight on noticing that the hastily printed out paper signs warning about late entrance were in the same font as the rest of the branding. Worrying? Yes, but he never got over seeing Comic Sans notices in Cath Kidston’s Covent Garden shop, either…