In 1974, British actors
Alec McCowen
and
Bob Hoskins
appeared in a West End production of
George Bernard Shaw
's
Pygmalion
,
McCowen
taking the part of the elocutionist,
Professor Henry Higgins
, and
Hoskins
that of
Alfred P. Doolittle
, Cockney father of flower girl
Eliza
, played by
Diana Riggs
. Twenty years later,
That's Entertainment! Records
(
TER
) reunited
in a recording studio to make an audio version of
My Fair Lady
, the
Alan Jay Lerner
/
Frederick Loewe
musical
based on the
Shaw
play, substituting young singer
Tinuke Olafimihan
(a
favorite who also appeared on the label's studio-cast recordings of
West Side Story
The King & I
On the Town
) as
. In typical
fashion, it was billed as the "first complete recording," that is, a two-CD set with lots of instrumental interludes and dialogue over underscoring, if not actually the entire
on disc. The added material gave the listener a better sense of
Higgins
, making him seem more likeable than on previous recordings, and there was more interaction between
and her father. While the Original Broadway Cast album remained the definitive recording of the score,
, who sang more than any previous
, gave a good accounting of the role, and
Olafimihan
, while no
Julie Andrews
, went at
with gusto. (
Michael Denison
Henry Wickham
, in the secondary roles of
Colonel Pickering
Freddy Eynsford-Hill
, were fine.) The chief failing of the recording was the casting of
, a talented character actor with no singing voice to speak of, who made a shambles of
"With a Little Bit of Luck"
"Get Me to the Church on Time"
not only because he couldn't sing, but also because he seemed to think he was in one of his brutal movie roles rather than giving a comic performance. ~ William Ruhlmann