Shaw wrote his plays for publication as well as performance, and there are charming asides (eg stopping writing Eliza’s dialogue phonetically). Superb characters – thoughtless driven Higgins; touchy, likeable Eliza (“I’m a good girl”); mercenary Doolittle. Even smaller parts like Mrs Pearce are memorable (I think Shaw really admired and enjoyed women; it comes across.) The comic set pieces remain first rate – Doolittle trying to get money off Higgins and complaining about middle class morality; Eliza’s first appearance in front of the ladies and Freddy; Eliza blowing up at Higgins. The lines are hilarious too (“the word ‘bridegroom’… it makes you realise your place, doesn’t it?”). We never see the garden party scene where Eliza wins the bet, and the romance between Eliza and Higgins is expressly denied by Shaw – but you can’t help reading it into the text. There’s a brilliant, hilarious prose epilogue from Shaw.
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