Pygmalion

By George Bernard Shaw

20th - 25th January 2020

For our Centenary year, we’ve decided to perform a play from each decade of the Progressive Players’ repertoire and in celebrating our 100th birthday, what better way to begin than Pygmalion! Representing the 1920s, George Bernard Shaw’s Pygmalion has been one of our most popular plays, performed three times, most recently in 1983.

It’s not hard to understand the enduring popularity of this play. Of course the iconic musical adaptation, My Fair Lady has a lot to do with it, but the story of Eliza Doolittle’s journey from precocious cockney flower girl to a refined lady of the upper crust is endlessly entertaining, made all the more enjoyable by the often tempestuous relationship she has with expert linguist, Henry Higgins. Will Higgins succeed in transforming this “squashed cabbage leaf” into a duchess? Will the flower girl’s dreams come true? These questions and more are answered in a play where George Bernard Shaw’s unique wit infuses every scene.

This play holds a unique place in our story, with George Bernard Shaw having acted as a supporter to the theatre in its early years. When speaking at a British Drama League conference in 1933, he said that drama societies had “the desire to do the highest type of drama”. It’s therefore only fitting that it has prime billing in our centenary season, as we look back at our history and celebrate everything we’ve accomplished since those early years.