Pygmalion Replays At Leeds Playhouse

As a new version of Pygmalion radically transformed through video and sound technology by the inventiveness of director Sam Pritchard hits the Courtyard Theatre in Leeds, we have revisited the actors who have played the cantankerous professor of phonetics in one Bernard Shaw’s most celebrated comedies.

Ovid’s Metamorphoses narrates that Pygmalion, a sculptor from Cyprus, managed under Venus blessings to turn an ivory sculpture into a woman. But how did Henry Higgins turn a Cockney ‘flower’ girl – Eliza Doolittle – into a lady fit for high society? Since the play’s debut in 1914, many actors have taken on the role of the talented and life–transforming professor of phonetics.

Herbert Beerbohm Tree – 1914: The actor was the first to play Professor Higgins, and the first who sought to ‘sweeten’ the play’s ending. An incurable sentimentalist, it seemed natural to him that if a play had a hero… he should eventually end up loving and marrying its heroine! The commercially astute actor is reminded to have made this comment amid Shaw’s exasperation: "My ending makes money, you ought to be grateful!" "Your ending is damnable; you ought to be shot!," was the playwright’s answer.

Alex McCowen – 1974: The award winning actor co-starred with Diana Rigg in the West End for a more feminist version of the much loved play.

Peter O'Toole – 1984: The star of Lawrence of Arabia played the role of Higgins at the Shaftesbury Theatre in the West End, opposite Jackie Smith-Wood. When the show moved to New York City, the critics fell for its star at once. “O'Toole ruled this Pygmalion with elegance and talent,” gushed at the time the New York Times. In the amended Val May’s version, the play ends with the fanatical phonetician laughing uncontrollably at the thought of Eliza's decision to marry the ‘hopeless’ Freddy Eynsford.

Tim Pigott-Smith – 2008: When the Warwickshire born actor played Higgins at the Old Vic in London, his performance received mixed reactions. “Tim Piggott-Smith seems almost a perfect Henry Higgins when we first see him in the comfort of his own home,” wrote Peter Brown, reviewer for London Theatre Guide. “But when we next see him at his mother's house, he became almost ridiculously childish – I began to feel the wave of disbelief waft over me,” he added.

Rupert Everett – 2011: Everett is one of the latest in the long line of Higgins's interpretations. The English actor gave an unexpected version of Shaw's prickly but witty professor. The performance however didn’t fully convince the critics, and Everett was described by the press at times as “languid and gruff,” at others as “dark and brooding.” “When he [Everett] emerges from the Covent Garden shadows, he evokes images of Jack the Ripper,” Michael Billington, from The Guardian, commented.