In 2025 an invitation came  from the Director Nicholas Barter to design the settings and costumes for a new production of George Bernard Shaw’s play Pygmalion, in Japan. This was to be created in 2025 ready for rehearsals in Tokyo at the last weeks of 2025, and again at the start of 2026.  The production is scheduled to start in Tokyo in 2026 and then travel to several cities in Japan ending up in Osaka. This was a challenging project, and still is, but I had designed several plays by G.B.Shaw, and am still greatly interested in his writing.

 

In 1938 a film of Pygmalion starring Wendy Hiller as Eliza Doolittle, and Leslie Howard as Henry Higgins. The film won the British Oscar for ‘The Best Screen Play’.  In our production (based on the play script) Henry Higgins is first seen outside St. Paul’s Church, Covent Garden at night. In the rain and the dark, everyone is sheltering in the portico of the church, while Eliza Doolittle is on her own still trying to sell her last bunch of Lavender. Higgins, hearing her voice, decides to teach her how to ‘speak proper’. He asks her to come to his Laboratory in Wimpole Street, so he can record her voice so she can hear how poor her speech is, and she can better herself by ‘Speaking Properly...’

 

Below are some of my ‘Character Drawings’ for our production, and some of the staging suggestions, digitally created by Jessica Wenjing (Assistant costume and set designer).

 

The cast of this production reveals the huge talents of the Japanese actors/singers... and so this adventure begins!

 

 

 

 

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