ONE hundred years, almost to the day after Shaw’s fascinating piece sashayed onto the stage it still has the power to intrigue, to amuse and to shock.

It isn’t the love story we might want it to be, unless you count the gooeyiness over Phonetics which pervades.

The sociopathic disregard of Higgins for the feelings of his protege, Eliza Doolittle, is at the heart of this hugely traditional telling. Sporting a stellar cast, including Rula Lenska as Higgins’ mother and Alistair McGowan, above, as that nasty old smart-arse Professor Higgins, there is something comfortingly nostalgic about this production.

The audience lapped it up.

I personally find more Eliza’s repeated assertion “I’m a good girl, I am” more tiresome with each repetition, but I was in a minority. There was an audible ripple of shock when Higgins calls her Eliza a slut (the word has somewhat narrowed in its meaning over the years). It is shocking to see the casual references to domestic violence that were much less taboo to the play’s first audiences, though.

Higgins is a devil of a part – we must admire his mind, but fear for his soul and we certainly do not warm to him. This production’s strength is refusing to allow any cute notions of romantic love to pervade. The stage lights up in the capable hands of Jamie Foreman as Alfred Doolittle, the dustman who, like his daughter, manages to claw his way up a rigid class system via luck. Rachel Barry is an endearing Eliza too and it is her story ultimately we care about, not the ancient sculptor the play takes its name from.

I would have liked to see a little more movement at times and a bit more punch, but other than that, it’s first class.

  • Runs until Saturday. Box Office: 08448-11-21-21 or theatreroyal.co.uk