In Hertford, Hereford And.......Pygmalion!

'alifax, 'arrogate and 'olbeck all have an 'h' so make sure you pronounce them otherwise people will judge you!

My grandmother spent much of her life correcting my questionable dialect, fearing that certain doors of opportunity would remain firmly closed if people ever considered me either 'rough', 'common' or too 'working class.'

Indeed, radio newsreaders in the 1980's were frowned upon if their dialect was too strong and, at Radio Trent, we had annual elocution lessons to keep those frowned upon vowels in check! Now they are positively encouraged.

But as Leeds University Professor, Richard Hoggart, once commented:
"Each decade we shiftily declare we have buried class yet each decade the coffin stays empty."

Class still positively suffocates life in Britain which is why this play will always have maximum impact in the UK.

George Bernard Shaw, at his insistence simply 'Bernard Shaw', was not only perceptive but ahead of his time when he wrote the comedy-of-manners Pygmalion in 1913, the play that later inspired Lerner and Loewe's musical, My Fair Lady, giving Audrey Hepburn lasting fame and one of her most memorable roles.

But I am strongly in agreement with the West Yorkshire Playhouse's Artistic Director, James Brining, when he says this staging is as much about the debate on gender, education and cultural authenticity, as it is about 'class'.

As with so many Playhouse productions conventional expectation is often rapidly shattered and Pygmalion is no exception, at the outset taking you by surprise; not a cockney accent in sight (or sound)! The eight-strong cast is in modern dress, there are more gizmos and gadgets than you can shake a stick at, and a 2017 veneer brashly asserts itself on top of Shaw's original script.

On the one hand director, Sam Pritchard's take on Shaw's work keeps all the laughs firmly in place - sometimes you find yourself howling at things you might not have thought quite as funny in a more traditional setting - whilst on the other he really does provoke thought and self-awareness.

Natalie Gavin as Eliza Doolittle, was excellent with an accent more in keeping with Shannon Matthews' Dewsbury based play, The Moorside, and there was an almost politically correct persona in Alex Beckett's Henry Higgins, in total contrast to his posturing, bigoted machoism.

However, it was the inventive opening and juxtapositioning of accents, via clever recording techniques, that initially threw the audience. By giving a so-called 'posh' person a 'rough accent' or a black person an accent traditionally associated with someone who is white, Pritchard creates momentary cerebral chaos! Nothing fits but, when order is restored in the grey matter department, this Pygmalion makes you question your own cultural and class prejudices, and that is to be applauded in this world of ever increasing prejudice.

The storyline is well known: phonetics expert meets fellow expert. They make a bet that they can gentrify a 'rough' flower seller and pass her off as a 'posh' member of society.

But it is the implications of doing this that are really explored in the play. Change someone and what happens? Her own class reject her as an upstart and the 'new' class reject her as an incomer.

Ian Burfield as Alfred Doolittle bemoans his good fortune - a £60 a week endowment that has destroyed his life, rejected by those from whom he traditionally borrowed, but forced to live in a new prison where he is neither working class nor true middle class. Equally he is loathed to give up his new-found wealth, welcoming and hating his bad fortune!

This is an excellent, thought-provoking production that lives up to the Playhouse's exacting standards.

As I later discussed the challenges of dialect in Wetherspoons, and the joys of Shaw's work, one bar room philosopher chipped in: "Water has a middle 't' in it so why do people in Yorkshire say 'war'er'. I 'yayt' it." The debate continues!

Pygmalion
At West Yorkshire Playhouse
Until 25th February 2017