I've seen My Fair Lady on stage a couple of times (once a revival with Rex Harrison himself) and it's a grand entertainment. I'm not the greatest fan of the movie for some reason. I actually like the straight play best, and the movie version with Leslie Howard and Wendy Hiller is wonderful. It's also a good play to read, which I do every now and then...

3.5 stars.

The concept of this play is very good, and it’s a thoroughly enjoyable read (especially when you do the Cockney and upper-class accents!).

I do prefer the movie/stage production of this play though, and this is mainly to do with the ending. It probably says a lot about my level of intelligence, that I like the chick flick, romcom kind of interpretation, rather than Shaw’s more highbrow feminist, idealist play, but there we go!

I would probably recommend this is fans of the film, but otherwise, there are probably better plays you could read with your time (I’m thinking Streetcar…).

3.5

I did not realize that Pygmalion was the basis of My Fair Lady. I tried hard to like this book more than I did, it Henry Higgins was really just a boarish person.

Ze zacatku fakt super, pak to na vtipu trochu ztratilo a z konce jsem taky takova rozpacita.

Au moins, elle a choisi Freddy

I like G.B. Shaw's intent to create a play demonstrating the large variety of way the English speak English (and the comedy involved with the variations, of course!). Higgins, a professor of linguistics can be a downright rude character but at the same time, speaks the truth in such an entertaining way that it's hard not to like him at least remotely. Eliza Doolittle's development from an uneducated flower-girl who is silly into a young woman who has grown to understand herself more and learn her self-worth through the six months of living with that insufferable Higgins is one that I found new for the age, but proper for a time when "feminism" was beginning to bloom. I really enjoyed that this isn't your traditional love-centered story. This isn't a comedy ending in engagements or marriage proposals, and I like how the play ends with a possibility that Eliza may marry someone in the future, but that by no means it is the most important thing in her life. The most important thing is that she has in a way "found" herself while trying to be someone she's not. She has learned her self-worth and wants her independence, which is something grand.

With that said, it is really a wonderful play, but for some reason I wasn't too drawn into it as I read. No doubt it would be TONS better on stage. Maybe if I read it again in the future or see it on stage I'll be more enthusiastic about it.

lots of misogyny and slutshaming, some farce though which was funny

shaw was a hitler sympathiser and so i’m not rating this (had to read it for uni