What kind of man is Henry Higgins? No actor wishes to ape the famous performance given by Rex Harrison in the film My Fair Lady. They must find their own truth. Higgins must be an insensitive bully. But his bullying must not make him heartless, for if we thought he could never fall in love, the story would not be interesting. Higgins has the best line in play and it sums him up well.

‘What is life but a series of inspired follies? The difficulty is to find them to do. Never lose a chance; it doesn’t come every day. I shall make a duchess of this draggletailed guttersnipe.’

Eliza is a difficult role to play. The character must change from an innocent child to a worldly adult, from a ‘squashed cabbage leaf’ to a princess. Yet the audience must believe that she is same person from start to finish.

Henry Higgins’ accomplice - Colonel Pickering is also a complex and fascinating character. At the end of the story Elisa claims that it is he and not Higgins who has taught her all the important things she needs to know.

Then there is Alfred Doolittle, Eliza’s father, who inherits a fortune and suddenly like his daughter moves from a world of rags to one of riches. But in the final scene he realises that the money will not make him happy because it is, after all, only money.

Miss Pearce is Professor Higgins’ long serving housemaid, who constantly has to cope with the professor’s eccentric behaviour and his rash desire to engage in mad follies.

Mrs Higgins is as hot-headed as her son Henry, but is nevertheless able to remind her son of his foolishness. when Eliza runs away, it is to Mrs Higgins that she seeks comfort. Mrs Higgins is the character who tries hardest to make Henry understand his responsibilities to Eliza. She identifies the central problem caused by her son’s desire to pass Eliza off as a princess and win the bet. She points out that Higgins has given Eliza – ‘..the manners and habits that disqualify a fine lady from earning her own living without giving her a fine lady’s income.’