Nikolai Foster sprinkles some directorial magic over a great take on My Fair Lady at the Curve, Leicester
“Does enchantment pourOut of every door?”
I remarked the last time I saw My Fair Lady that we don’t get to see it that often, given its status as a stalwart of the classic musical theatre genre. I wasn’t much of a fan of that 2022 production at the Coliseum (which went on to tour the UK) but I did enjoy the one before for me which was Sheffield’s 2012 production. News that it would be 2024’s Made at Curve Christmas production made me hope that journeying out of London once again would be just the trick.
I would argue that it absolutely is. Director Nikolai Foster sprinkles just enough freshness over Lerner and Loewe’s musical to make it shine anew, enough subtle differences that accumulate to an overall substantive new approach which, for me, really works in a way that the Lincoln Center production’s changes didn’t quite achieve. A younger Professor Higgins here, an explicitly gay Colonel Pickering there, the resetting of the core relationships results in something really quite joyous.
At the heart of the show, Molly Lynch’s Eliza does a phenomenal job with Loewe’s score, her shimmering soprano taking classics such as ‘Wouldn’t It Be Loverly’ and ‘I Could Have Danced All Night’ and delivering them with glorious skill. Her lyrical skills, particularly around her developing accent are technically superb too. David Seadon-Young makes for a younger Professor than we might previously have seen but he makes it make perfect sense, his almost-manic demeanour suggesting maybe he’s somewhere on the spectrum but not definitively so, the focus more on the warm comedy coming from his pairing with Minal Patel’s hopelessly flirtatious Pickering.
Michael Taylor’s set and costume design is a triumph, extending out into the auditorium of the Curve in ways I haven’t seen before (though tbh I don’t visit as often as I would like…) and extraordinarily fluid in the way it switches locations. Joanna Goodwin’s choreography likewise uses the space well and the harmonies of the company sound fantastic under George Dyer’s musical supervision. Cathy Tyson’s Mrs Higgins, Damian Buhagiar’s Zoltan, Steve Furst’s Alfred, so many of the supporting performances register so strongly too, like an advent calendar giving its multiple gifts.
