Prof Karpathy all play their part in
Eliza’s metamorphosis.
Everyone knows the story and
that George Bernard Shaw originally
wrote Pygmalion purely as a play,
which was first staged in 1913. He
resisted it being turned into a musical
although this eventually happened in
1956, six years after his death, and a
film was also made.
The play explores the ramifications
of ‘speaking proper’ at a time when
elocution was valued as a symbol
of education and upward mobility.
Personally, I abhor the ‘dumbing
down’ of our language nowadays
where it seems whoever enunciates it
correctly is considered a toff, so the
less comprehensible the better!
Any production involves a lot of
unseen, and sometimes unpraised,
people beavering away behind the
scenes. John Reynolds, an architect
in his former life, has designed the
relatively simple set and the Shed
team comprising Peter Messenger
with David Noble, John Ranger and
Martin Smith, are busy constructing
it.