Here's a plan for updating Pygmalion: each week Professor Higgins could polish up the pronunciation of some ill-spoken commoner; and instead of a bunch of snooty ambassadors and society ladies deciding whether they pass muster, the audience could conduct a text-poll to vote them off.
It's not as far-fetched as it seems. Higgins laments living in "an age of upstarts" - has that ever sounded truer than today? You could even make a case that Shaw's Professor, with his preening attitude of cynicism, superciliousness and self-regard, was the original model for Simon Cowell.
Damian Cruden's handsome production has a slightly sombre tone, which feels entirely appropriate - Pygmalion is less optimistic and more morally complex than its musical cousin My Fair Lady, and Cruden deserves credit for tackling the original with serious intent. Yet there's no shortage of humour, which attains blissful comic perfection in the famous moment when Eliza betrays herself with an inadvertent "Not bloody likely".
Nor can it be overstated how good it is to see large, confidently cast plays occupying regional stages again. David Leonard superbly captures Higgins's unstable blend of intellectual arrogance and petulant childishness; Christine Cox is an imperious model of common sense as his mother and Robert Pickavance blithely genteel as a kindly Colonel Pickering.
Yet it is the nature of this elaborate, Edwardian reality show to produce a star, and Sarah Quintrell's Eliza clearly has the X-factor. At first she doesn't so much mince her words as pulverise them into a ghastly, glottal stew; yet Quintrell touchingly comes to suggest that Eliza is spiritually much the poorer for her elevation from flower girl to society flower. But would anyone dare to bet against her? Not bloody likely.
· Until June 17. Box office: 01904 623568.
