by Bernard Shaw
The language-professor Henry Higgins makes a bet that he can pass a common flower-girl off as a duchess at an ambassador’s garden-party, simply by training her to speak correctly. The lessons begin, and after six months Eliza can speak and behave like a lady: Higgins wins his bet. But then the real problems start…
What is to become of Eliza, now that Higgins has removed her from her origins? And what are the emotional connections between Higgins, Eliza, Colonel Pickering, and Higgins’ mother? The famous professor soon finds himself lost in a world of feminine feelings and sensibilities that he, with his brash masculinity and analytical brain, cannot understand...
Photos of 'Pygmalion'
Extract from the script 'Pygmalion'
| Higgins: | A woman who utters such depressing and disgusting sounds has no right to be anywhere – no right to live. Remember that you are a human being with a soul and the devine gift of articulate speech: that your native language is the language of Shakespeare and Milton and the Bible; and don't sit there crooning like a bilious pigeon. |
| Eliza: | Ah-ah-ah-ow-ow-ow-oo |
| Higgins: | Heavens! what a sound! Ah-ah-ah-ow-ow-ow-oo! |
| Eliza: | Garn! |
| Higgins: | You see this creature with her kerbstone English: the English that will keep her in the gutter to the end of her days. Well, sir, in six months I could pass that girl off as a duchess at an ambassador's garden party. I could even get her a place as lady's maid or shop assistant, which requires better English. |
| Eliza: | What's that you say? |
| Higgins: | Yes, you squashed cabbage leaf, you disgrace to the noble architecture of these columns, you incarnate insult to the English language: I could pass you off as the Queen of Sheba. Can you believe that? |