The Peter Hall-directed production of Pygmalion, which is currently playing at the Old Vic, has extended its London engagement and will now close on 9 August.
The show had previously been due to close one week earlier, but critical acclaim and public interest has led to a change of plans for the production that was first staged at the Theatre Royal Bath.
The Bernard Shaw drama stars Tim Pigott-Smith as Professor Henry Higgins, a man who believes that with a little hard work he can turn Cockney flower girl Eliza Doolittle (played by Michelle Dockery) into a duchess.
The transfer of Pygmalion to the Old Vic marked something of a homecoming for Hall, who took charge of the National Theatre at the Waterloo venue before it moved to its South Bank home, and returned in 1997 for a season including Waiting For Godot, Waste and The Seagull. It also marks a reunion for Pigott-Smith and Old Vic Artistic Director Kevin Spacey, who appeared together in the 1998 production of The Iceman Cometh, staged at the Old Vic.
Speaking at the announcement of Pygmalion’s transfer, Spacey said: “I cannot think of a production better suited to the Old Vic stage.”
Pygmalion will be followed, from 11 September, by London’s first revival of Alan Ayckbourn’s The Norman Conquests since the triptych of plays debuted in 1974.
Joining the previously announced cast of Amelia Bullmore, Jessica Hynes, Stephen Mangan and Paul Ritter is Amanda Root, whose last London outing came in 2006’s Enemies at the Almeida.
MA