My Fair Lady producers announce their cast

Producers are delighted to announce the first casting news for Bartlett Sher’s award-winning production of My Fair Lady at the London Coliseum.

Amara Okereke will star as Eliza Doolittle. Okereke was recently seen in the Almeida’s acclaimed production of Spring Awakening and she won the Stage Debut Award for her performance as Cosette in Les Miserables.

She will be joined by Harry Hadden-Paton who reprises his performance as Henry Higgins which he originated at the Lincoln Center in New York and for which he received Tony and Grammy award nominations.

Hadden-Paton has worked extensively on stage in both London and New York and is perhaps best known for his roles as Martin Charteris in The Crown (Netflix) and Bertie Pelham in Downton Abbey (ITV).

Also announced today is stage legend Dame Vanessa Redgrave who will play Mrs Higgins. Redgrave is returning to the West End stage for the first time since her appearance in The Inheritance in 2018. 

Joining her will be Maureen Beattie who will play Mrs Pearce and Sharif Afifi who will play Freddie Eynesford-Hill.

Further casting will be announced soon.

New York’s Lincoln Center Theater’s critically acclaimed and multi award-winning production of Lerner & Loewe’s much loved My Fair Lady will transfer to the London Coliseum for a limited summer engagement in what will be the first major West End revival of the show for 21 years.

The season comes as part of the ongoing celebrated tradition of summer musicals at the London Coliseum. The perfect way to celebrate London’s theatre scene as it blossoms once more after the pandemic. 

Directed by Barlett Sher, this sublime production, which premiered in the spring of 2018 at Lincoln Center’s Vivian Beaumont Theater, was the winner of the Tony Award for Best Costume Design, 5 Outer Critics’ Circle Awards including Best Musical Revival, the Drama League Award for Outstanding Musical Revival, and the Drama Desk Awards for Best Musical Revival and Costume Design.

This London production will feature 36 musicians from the ENO’s award-winning Orchestra playing Frederick Loewe’s ravishing score making it the largest orchestra in the West End.

Adapted from George Bernard Shaw’s play and Gabriel Pascal’s motion picture Pygmalion, Lerner & Loewe’s My Fair Lady premiered on Broadway in March 1956, winning 6 Tony Awards including Best Musical, and becoming the longest-running musical in Broadway history at the time.

Following this success, the production transferred to London in 1958, where it played in the West End for five and a half years. 

My Fair Lady has seen many notable revivals and adaptations, including the acclaimed 1964 film starring Audrey Hepburn and Rex Harrison, which won eight Academy Awards, including Best Picture. Most recently on the London stage, Cameron Mackintosh’s 2001 revival at Theatre Royal Drury Lane won three Olivier Awards, and later toured across the UK and Ireland in 2005.