Pygmalion

Past productions

New Theatre, New Theatre, Newtown 23^rd April – 25^th May 2019.
Chameleon’s Web Theatre Company, Headgate Theatre, Colchester, The Manifest Theatre, Manningtree, and other locations 25^th March – 2^nd April 2017.
Headlong/Nuffield Southampton/West Yorkshire Playhouse, West Yorkshire Playhouse, Leeds 4^th – 25^th February 2017.
Garrick Theatre, London May – September 2011.
Royal Exchange Theatre, Manchester, Royal Exchange Theatre, Manchester 17^th May – 19^th June 2010.
Peter Hall Company, Bath Theatre Royal 13^th – 28^th July 2007.
Noel Coward Theatre, London 1996 – 1997.
National Theatre, Olivier Theatre, National Theatre 9^th April – ? 1992.
Salisbury Arts Theatre Limited, Playhouse Salisbury ended 8^th December 1979.
Birmingham Repertory Theatre, Birmingham Repertory Theatre 22^nd September – 22^nd October 1977.

Pygmalion is a play by George Bernard Shaw, named after a Greek mythological character. It was first presented on stage to the public in 1913.

Professor of phonetics Henry Higgins makes a bet that he can train a bedraggled Cockney flower girl, Eliza Doolittle, to pass for a duchess at an ambassador’s garden party by teaching her to assume a veneer of gentility, the most important element of which, he believes, is impeccable speech. The play is a sharp lampoon of the rigid British class system of the day and a commentary on women’s independence.

In ancient Greek mythology, Pygmalion fell in love with one of his sculptures, which then came to life.
Shaw mentioned that the character of Professor Henry Higgins was inspired by several British professors of phonetics: Alexander Melville Bell, Alexander J. Ellis, Tito Pagliardini, but above all, the cantankerous Henry Sweet.

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