Masterminding the remarkable success of Chichester's My Fair Lady

It's difficult to think of a Chichester Festival Theatre summer musical that has had a better public and critical response than this year's My Fair Lady.

Directing it – and thrilled with the way it has turned out – is Rachel Kavanaugh who brought a wealth of previous Chichester experience to the endeavour including The Music Man, Shadowlands and Half A Sixpence.

The show runs until Saturday, September 5.

Adding to the interest is the fact that Rachel is – in the UK at the very least – the show’s first female director – interesting given the misogyny that so many people detect in the play, certainly in the character of Henry Higgins. But as Rachel points out, the issue is far more complex and nuanced than that.

“Just because characters are uttering misogynistic and out-of-date, outlandish things, it does not mean that the piece itself is misogynistic. You can have a racist character in a play but that does not make the play racist, and for me it's really about separating the two things.

“A lot of Henry's core beliefs and assumptions appear to be horrifically misogynistic and outdated but the point is that Henry Higgins is very much a provocative character, and part of the joy and part of the pleasure of the whole piece is seeing him spark off with Eliza (in this production Hadley Fraser and Keziah Ibe respectively).

“There is a massive power shift in the second half. Higgins’ epiphany is very, very late in the show but like Scrooge, I think the fact that it is so late makes it all the more moving. You listen to I've Grown Accustomed To Her Face and it's one of the most extraordinary pieces of song-writing in musical theatre.

“But for me, like all shows that are about a difficult relationship, it's about the meeting of these two souls, two humans who by being together make each other better people despite how appallingly they behave at times.

“It is very easy to focus on how outlandish Henry Higgins is but Eliza is a quite extraordinary character too. She sings a song fantasising about him being shot dead by a firing squad! Eliza is absolutely no ordinary person either, no ordinary girl with ordinary boundaries. In her own way she is just as extreme as he is. It is not a piece about bullying, about a man training and chastising a woman. It's a piece about the meeting of two very extreme people.

“There is that dreaded word ‘journey’ but they both change dramatically. She changes on the outside and he changes on the inside in the last ten minutes.”

For Rachel, it’s all a particularly special success: “I've always loved the film and I knew it very well. I grew up with the film and I've seen it on stage, and in a way it's in my DNA but I never expected to fall in love with it in quite the way that I did during rehearsals. It has been just the most joyous experience.

“I have just been so blessed with the actors, with Hadley and Keziah, but also with all of the cast. Everyone has brought something exciting to it. I think everybody brought their A game frankly! We were all heading in the same direction. We all wanted to make the same kind of production, and I think Chichester is very liberating as a theatre.”

And since the show opened, it has just grown and grown: “I think it was all so fun and so creative with so many good ideas that it was really good at the start of the run but I think it has got better and better. And you remember that it is Keziah’s first job and she too just keeps on getting better and better. She is one of the most gratifying actors to work with in that she just improves all the time. She doesn't go down weird side roads or take one step forward and two steps back. I've just found it really thrilling to guide her and to witness her. She has been incredibly mature. And I have just been very blessed to have Hadley who is an absolutely transformative actor. He is brilliant and energetic in all the best ways, and he has huge natural charm which is really important for a part like Henry Higgins. There is a danger that people could turn against Higgins for what he says, but Hadley gives him such charm that you just find him gorgeous and endearing.”

Adding to the success is that fact that off-stage, Rachel found herself with people she knew and has loved working with in the past – with set and costumes by Peter McKintosh (Top Hat, South Pacific, Shadowlands) and choreography by Stephen Mear (Gypsy, Mack & Mabel, Kiss Me Kate).

As for the importance of Rachel being the show’s first UK director: “It is significant and it is not. The only woman that has directed it before was Julie Andrews who recreated Moss Hart’s staging in Australia. She was running a rehearsal room but she did not create her own production. I don't know about every country but I am the first woman to direct it in the UK, and maybe that feels more significant given the perceived subject matter of the show, given that it deals with a relationship between a man and a woman which can be perceived as problematic. I think that is interesting. But I can't direct as a woman. I can only direct as me. I can bring the sensibilities of a woman to the show but above all I bring the sensibilities of Rachel!”