The curtain opens on the early morning hubbub of Covent Garden; Eliza fantasises on how good things could be when the crowd's attention turns to the scribblings of one Henry Higgins - a Professor of Language and Phonetics. By chance, Higgins bumps into Colonel Pickering, a fellow phonetics enthusiast, and amazes the early morning Cockney crowd with his ability to place every man within a quarter of a mile of their home town.

Small wonder, therefore, that Eliza who dearly wishes to better herself, arrives the following morning at Higgins' house to take elocution lessons from the learned professor. He and Pickering see the opportunity to take on a challenge and before she knows where she is, Eliza is part of an elaborate wager to convert her from a "Cockney guttersnipe" to a grande dame acceptable at the forthcoming Embassy Ball.

Eliza moves in with the eccentric professor who toils for hours on end to improve upon her diction and dialect. Catching wind of his daughter's seeming good fortune, who should appear at the house but Alfred P. Doolittle, Eliza's rogue of a father. He is, however, dispatched with a five pound note by the professor who recommends him to an American moralist as a potential and original lecturer on morals.

After hours of coaching Eliza eventually succeeds to the great joy and jubilation of her tutors, and both Higgins and Pickering decide to "try her out" at Ascot races.

A transformed Eliza sweeps Freddy Eynesford-Hill off his feet at Ascot as she joins Mrs Higgins and her entourage. The whole event is, however, marked by Eliza's enthusiasm for the racing!

Come the the night of the Embassy Ball, it is to Henry Higgins' chagrin that he is approached by Zoltan Karpathy, an ex-student, who is determined to fathom out the provenance of the new Miss Doolittle. Despite attempts to avoid him, Eliza is eventually cornered by him but does not let the side down!

Back at Professor Higgins' house, the gentlemen congratulate themselves and it is only at this point that Eliza begins to wonder what the future will hold for her. Is she only to return to the market of Covent Garden, or should she marry the besotted Freddy and become a lady?

Higgins seems impervious to her predicament and in desperation she turns to Professor Higgins' mother for assistance.

Higgins misses Eliza rather more than he would like to admit, and we are all left wondering what the future holds for him, for her and for Freddy!

Background
Alan J. Lerner and Frederick Loewe built upon their previous successes of "Brigadoon" and "Paint Your Wagon" with "My Fair Lady" in 1956.

There is no doubt that its popularity was heightened with the production of the film by Warner brothers and the memorable casting of Rex Harrison as Professor Higgins, a character with the enduring aura of immortality.

Rex Harrison played his final Professor Higgins for the 1,007th time with the production of the film. He originally appeared in "My Fair Lady" for two years on the New York Stage, and for one year in London. After a gap of almost four years he returned to Warner Brothers for the film enactment, and decided that he had to get to know Higgins all over again.

He was partnered by the unrivalled talent of Audrey Hepburn as Eliza ". . . an enchanting, once in a lifetime experience", as she put it herself. In the film she is shown as both her father's daughter - wild and untrammelled and as an extremely complicated as well as intelligent woman to mirror Professor Higgins. She began work for the film six weeks in advance with a vocal coach, dance director, musical director and posed for endless hours in Cecil Beaton gowns.

Beaton was the production, scenery and costume designer, and contrasted the grey respectability of the Covent Garden set, the musty Victorian masculinity of Professor Higgins' Wimpole Street home and the opulence of the Embassy Ballroom. The breathtaking costumes of Ascot counterpointed the authentic tattiness of the costermongers. More than 1,000 costumes were designed for the picture and used hundreds of yards of fabric, lame, beads and sequins. No wonder he was awarded an Oscar for his work.

Today, "My Fair Lady" remains popular with audiences the world over, an enduring tribute to the men who took George Bernard Shaw's "Pygmalion" and turned it into a masterpiece of the musical theatre.