Watching a star form before your eyes is a magical feeling. In Bartlett Sher’s revolutionary take on My Fair Lady, now playing in the West End four years after it opened on Broadway, Amara Okereke is that star. As Eliza Doolittle, the 25-year-old gives one of the most enthralling stage performances of the year, transforming from a gobby Cockney flower seller to a member of the genteel English middle classes at the hands of Professor Henry Higgins (Harry Hadden-Paton). The show, with its changed ending, may divide musical theatre purists, but there’s no denying Okereke’s talent.
As the production opens on the dank streets of Covent Garden, we meet a loud, roaring Eliza. That why-I-oughta energy dissipates as she lets herself dream, light shining out of her face while she sings in lilting soprano tones for “Wouldn’t It Be Loverly”. But even when Eliza learns her Ps and Qs and wins upper-class approval, she doesn’t lose that defiant spark; her tongue remains mischievously glued to the inside of her cheek.
