My Fair Lady – Mallaband-Brown

I just sang a solo at the Penkhull at the Musicals event. I was singing the penultimate song and I’d sung with the choir with no mishaps. I’d even got the words right in a small solo part way through umpapah umpapah from the musical Oliver.

I’d chosen a short song from My Fair Lady, ‘wouldn’t it be loverly’ the one that starts all I want is a room somewhere. I’ve practiced it for weeks and been fine. But, although I started OK, phew, the second verse went wrong, I repeated the wrong words three times, then went off in a different key! but I managed to hold it together and finished OK and people applauded. I’m glad it was a friendly crowd. I do struggle with singing along with a piano. I prefer a cappella. But I did OK in the end. Glad it’s over!

I’m currently watching ‘My Fair Lady’ a musical based on the story Pigmalion by George Bernard Shaw.

The story is about a flower girl, Eliza Doolittle, who is trying to improve her cockney accented voice by taking lessons from Professor Higgins. She is taken in by the Professor who says he will turn her into someone who sounds like a duchess in six months. However his methods are unfeeling and really push Eliza. The film seems to sympathise with the professor rather than Eliza.

Songs like ‘all I want is a room somewhere’, ‘the rain in spain’ and ‘I could have danced all night’.

Audrey Hepburn stars as Eliza. She was able to sing the songs but they were dubbed by a singer called Marni Nixon, whose voice is in about fifty films!

If you’ve never watched it, you may feel the ideas in it are old fashioned, but it is set in Victorian/Edwardian times. The music is amazing and energetic. Worth watching.

Mallaband-Brown

Tag: My Fair Lady

Wouldn’t it be loverly

Musicals, My Fair Lady