My Fair Lady, and the hats she wears.

How do you become a Fair Lady?

I've been to see My Fair Lady at the Sydney Opera House. This was the Sixtieth Anniversary of My Fair Lady, directed by Julie Andrews, the original star of My Fair Lady on Broadway. She's also been in lots of films, The Sound of Music, Mary Poppins, Schrek, The Princess Diaries (thats my favourite film, about how to become a Queen).

In this play, Eliza Doolitle has to learn how to be a lady. The professor thinks that the way a person speaks changes who they are in society. He tries to educate Eliza to speak like a duchess, which is the title of an aristocrat, a member of the royal family. But she is a flower seller with a cockney accent. Its a case of the 'great divide', like in the genre of the romantic comedy, its just a comedy, and a social comment, but there is still a divide between the characters, because of money and social class. Those can be powerful things, and people can be very attached to them.

In the show they go to the races as well, like today in Australia when it was Melbourne Cup Day. All the women there wear beautiful classic hats and outfits too, they look like they're going to a wedding, but its just for the races, like at the Melbourne Cup. She is making conversation like a real lady, and everyone is staring at her because she is so beautiful. She even had tea with the professor's mother, and spoke the words about the weather she had been taught to say. I think its a poem. The Rain in Spain, that sounds like a poem, and the professor does a tap dance so she knows how long to pause between sentences. Its remarkable. Which means unusual and interesting. But then she gets excited when the race starts and forgets to speak like a lady, she yells "comon' dover move your blooming ass!"