From AudioFile
This performance of Shaw's perceptive comedy sparkles with wit and scintillating characterizations. Outstanding performances by the entire company, especially the actors portraying major characters, contribute to the vitality of this production. As her cockney accent gradually gives way to refined, articulate sentences, Shannon Cochran makes us believe in Eliza's transformation from flower girl to cultured lady. Nicholas Rudall artfully captures the self-centered swagger and joie de vivre of Eliza's father. Nicholas Pennell intelligently portrays the egotistical Professor Higgins. Basic sound effects are all that's necessary to create a context for this drama. The adult or high-school-age listener will find this audio production the next best thing to being there. R.M. (Harper Audio offers a Caedmon full cast performance with Michael Redgrave et al.) (c)AudioFile, Portland, Maine
Midwest Book Review
One of Shaw's best works, Pygmalion is a perceptive comedy of wit and wisdom about the unique relationship between a spunky cockney flower-girl and her irascible speech professor. The flower girl Eliza Doolittle teaches the egotistical phonetics professor Henry Higgins that to be a lady means more than just learning to speak like one. The performance by the L. A. Theatre Works is technically flawless and a world-class performance of a theatrical classic.
Pygmalion FROM THE PUBLISHER
Pygmalion both delighted and scandalized its first audiences in 1914. A brilliantly witty reworking of the classical tale of the sculptor who falls in love with his perfect female statue, it is also a barbed attack on the British class system and a statement of Shaw's feminist views. In Shaw's hands, the phoneticist Henry Higgins is the Pygmalion figure who believes he can transform Eliza Doolittle, a cockney flower girl, into a duchess at ease in polite society. The one thing he overlooks is that his 'creation' has a mind of her own.
This is the definitive text produced under the editorial supervision of Dan H. Laurence, with an illuminating introduction by Nicholas Grene, discussing the language and politics of the play. Also included in this volume is Shaw's preface, as well as his 'sequel' written for the first publication in 1916, to rebut public demand for a more conventionally romantic ending.
FROM THE CRITICS
AudioFile
Probably Shaw's most endearing play and the basis (and libretto) for MY FAIR LADY, this witty comedy concerns an expert linguist who, on a bet, seeks to pass off a flower girl as a duchess. Naxos's production wisely incorporates a narrator who sets the scene with Shaw's own stage directions, as he expanded them for publication. Under John Tydeman's confident direction, the excellent cast fully realizes the intelligent humor and persuasive characterizations of the text. My favorite is Geoffrey Palmer as Colonel Pickering, foil and sidekick of Henry Higgins. Perhaps Anton Lesser's voice is a bit flimsy for the overbearing professor, but not so his acting. His Eliza, Lucy Whybrow, could be less irritating and more sympathetic. But otherwise, the ensemble provides a splendidly satisfying rendition. Y.R. Winner of AudioFile Earphones Award (c) AudioFile 2002, Portland, Maine
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