Hobart soprano at the helm in popular musical, My Fair Lady

A new production of the popular musical My Fair Lady, starring classically-trained soprano Allison Farrow, will play at the Theatre Royal in Hobart.

Allison Farrow is playing Eliza Doolittle opposite Jeff Michel’s Professor Higgins in 'My Fair Lady' at the Theatre Royal. Picture: MATT THOMPSON

ALLISON Farrow is feeling the weight of expectation as she prepares to play Eliza Doolittle in Lerner and Loewe’s classic musical My Fair Lady.

The masterful retelling of George Bernard Shaw’s play Pygmalion, presented by Hobart’s Bijou Creative, will be performed on the Theatre Royal stage for the first time in 20 years.

“I’ve really been feeling the pressure of delivering such an iconic role,” says Hobart-based Farrow, a classically trained soprano who will play opposite Jeff Michel’s Professor Higgins.

“Every audience member is going to be familiar with Eliza Doolittle. She’s a cultural icon and everyone will have their own ideas about how that role should be played. In a lot of the reviews I’ve read [of the musical], the consensus has been that no one can live up to Julie Andrews.”

My Fair Lady premiered on Broadway on March 15, 1956, starring Rex Harrison as Professor Higgins and Julie Andrews as Eliza Doolittle. The production won six Tony Awards, including Best Musical. Harrison reprised his performance in the Academy Award-winning 1964 film adaptation opposite Audrey Hepburn — Farrow’s personal favourite.

“What I love about the Bijou production is, yes, it’s set [in London] in 1912, but it’s still very relevant in 2019. It’s really focused on the conversation about class,” she says.

My Fair Lady tells the story of an arrogant linguistics expert, Professor Higgins, and the cockney flower girl, Eliza Doolittle, who Higgins is determined to transform into a proper and dignified lady. It’s a tale of class, gender, politics and transformation.

“There’s a lovely line that Eliza has and it says, ‘Apart from the things one can pick up [such as the proper way of speaking and dressing], the difference between a lady and a flower girl is not how she behaves, but how she is treated’,” Farrow says.

“For me that’s the most profound line of the whole show. We judge people a lot on their behaviour and their dress and speech, when really, if we treated them more kindly we’d see that we are all the same really.”

My Fair Lady is Bijou’s biggest and final show of the year. Its cast of 30 performers aged 15 to 75 includes Paul Levett as Colonel Pickering, John Xintavelonis as Alfred P. Doolittle, Andrew Short as Freddy Fynsford-Hill, and Noreen Le Mottee as Mrs Higgins.

Unlike in the original show, in which the Professor is much older than Eliza, the lead characters in Bijou’s production are about the same age.

“I wanted their relationship to be based more on class [difference] than the age difference,” says director Karen Kluss. “I wanted people to see the show in a new light, and not to see Higgins as the older misogynist male.”

The musical will include traditional elements such as elaborate, beautiful costumes, alongside a contemporary set design and new technologies.

“We are using technology to bring our scenes to life,’’ Kluss says. “We are doing something that hasn’t been done at this scale before, and I think our audiences will be wowed by how we are approaching the scenes.”

The musical features a number of popular show tunes performed by a 24-piece orchestra, including I Could Have Danced All Night, Wouldn’t It Be Loverly?, The Rain in Spain and On the Street Where You Live.

“The musical does speak of serious topics, but there are plenty of light moments, which will have people going home feeling good and whistling the tunes,” Farrow says.

My Fair Lady plays at the Theatre Royal in Hobart from October 25 until November 9. Tickets are available from myfairlady.com.au, and from the Theatre Royal, phone [phone], or in person from the box office.