* The memorable Ascot scene from the Operatic's My Fair Lady.
If you’re a lover of big stage musicals then the latest offering from Llangollen Operatic Society is going to be right on the street where you live.
The society last performed that Lerner
and Loewe evergreen 30 years ago and a handful of cast members who were in it back
in the Eighties have returned to add their experience to the current production
which opened last night in the Town Hall and runs for the next four evenings
plus a matinee on Saturday.
The show tells the well-known tale of
Eliza Doolittle, an awkward Covent Garden flower girl who is transformed into
the fair lady of the title by prickly phoneticist Professor Henry Higgs in Edwardian
London.
But while Eliza is fashioned into an
elegant and poised beauty by the Prof the often painful transformation has the
unexpected side-effect of bringing out the human side of the curmudgeonly
bachelor academic.
Taking the key role of Eliza is
stunning new am-dram star Esme Sallnow who was simply made
for it. She looks the part, can act up a storm and has the kind of voice the
composers must have imagined for their female lead.
Higgins is played by Llan Operatic stalwart Chris
Sims who brings to the enormous and challenging part just the right amount of crustiness contrasted with
humour.
Another actor precisely of the kind Lerner and
Loewe must have had in mind when they were working up the loveably cheeky
character of Alfie Doolittle, the dustman dad of Eliza, is Bill Hughes. With the
ability to become indefatigably Cockney right down to his gorblimey trousers, he has
one of the best and most powerful voices you’re ever likely to hear on an
amateur stage anywhere.
The
excellent John Clifford, with whom Llangollen audiences are familiar from a
diverse range of roles, shines again as Colonel Pickering, Higgins’s
bumbling yet kind-hearted sidekick, and another Operatic favourite, Alison Ravenscroft,
plays the Professor’s housekeeper, Mrs Pearce, with all her usual polish.
Graham Kelly
gives a good interpretation of Freddie Eynsford-Hill, the mooning toff who
makes a play for Eliza’s heart.
With My Fair
Lady it’s the unforgettable songs which have haunted audiences down the decades
since this conversion of George Bernard Shaw’s Pygmalion was first staged back
in the 1950s.
And the way
the Llan cast of almost 40, augmented with some budding talent from its Young 'Uns junior section, presents them with gusto and feeling does each one
perfect justice.From the touching I Could Have Danced All Night from Eliza to the crafty With a Little Bit of Luck from Alfie Doolittle and from the hopeful On the Street Where You Live from Freddie to the rousing Get Me to the Church of Time by the whole ensemble everyone's a winner.
As well as
the musical numbers lots of time has clearly been lavished on the choreography
and plenty of work has also gone into the period-correct costumes and
eye-catching stage settings, none more so than the famous black and white Ascot
scene which is stunning to both see and hear.
The
show is a real spectacular and a credit to director Leigh Mason, artistic
director Joanne Lloyd and producer Helen Belton who brought the whole thing together is remarkable style.
My Fair Lady is on at 7.30pm each
evening of the run with the Saturday matinee starting at 2pm.
* Tickets, at £12 and £10 concessions,
are available from Bailey’s, Gwyn the Butcher and Jades in Llangollen town
centre as well as by phoning Stella Bond on 01978 860441 or by going online at:
www.ticketsource.co.uk/llangollenoperaticsociety
(fee applies).
