As the hottest West End show of 1958, My Fair Lady attracted its share of celebrity theatregoers in the weeks, months, and, indeed, years following its spectacular London opening, sixty years ago this week. Without doubt, the most high profile visitor to Drury Lane was the Queen herself who presided over a Royal Gala Performance on May 5 in aid of King George’s Pension Fund for Actors and Actresses.
Looking resplendent in a full-length evening gown of silver lame with a white fur stole and diamond tiara, the Queen arrived at Drury Lane amidst a flurry of reporters and onlookers. She was accompanied by husband Prince Philip, first cousin Princess Alexandra, and Chief Lady-in-Waiting, Lady Pamela Mountbatten (Tanfield, 12). It was the Queen’s first public engagement following a respiratory illness that had kept her bed-bound for over a week and, such was the interest of the time in royal minutiae, that press reports noted how Her Majesty “coughed several times” during the performance (“Queen, All A-Glitter,” 9).
The press also made much about the show’s celebrated use of mild profanity in the Ascot scene when Eliza screams, “Come on, Dover, move your bloomin’ arse!” This comic line was one of several innovations by Alan Jay Lerner to the source script of Shaw’s Pygmalion as the original line––“Not bloody likely”–– was deemed too mild for a 1950s musical (Goring 5). It seems impossibly quaint today but there was quite passionate public debate as to whether such vulgarity was fit for royal ears with some suggesting the line be dropped for the Royal Performance (“Fears,” 11; Goring, 5). In the end, it remained in the show and newspaper reports recount that:
During the Ascot scene when THAT word which was intended to shock was uttered by Julie Andrews the Queen sat bolt upright without smiling while Prince Philip laughed heartily and Princess Alexandra put up her gloved hand to her face” (“Queen, All A-Glitter,” 9).
Whether in spite or because of such earthy comedy, the Queen enjoyed My Fair Lady enormously with one account reporting that she "laughed and applauded as delightedly as the rest of the gala charity benefit audience” (“Did Queen Blush,” 1). Another noted pointedly how the Queen and Prince “laughed gayly when Eliza’s father...staggered out of a stage pub and told the landlord to ‘send the bill to the palace’” (“Queen and Prince Laugh Gayly,” 11).
With all the attendant ceremony, Royal Performances can be notoriously protracted affairs and it was nearly midnight before the audience sang “God Save the Queen” to mark the close of the public part of the evening (“Queen and Prince Laugh Gayly,” 11). As is customary, the Royal Party then went backstage to greet the cast, where the Queen is reported to have remarked, “I simply loved the show...it is very gay”. She asked Julie “how she kept up the cockney accent so well” to which, with typical modesty, Julie replied that “she found it difficult to put one on at all” (“Queen, All A-Glitter,” 9).
Later that same month, the Queen’s younger sister, Princess Margaret officiated at another Gala Performance of My Fair Lady on 22 May 1958, this time in aid of the Royal College of Nursing. Popularly viewed at the time as the glamorous ‘movie star’ member of the royal family, Margaret had a grand reputation for high fashion and society partying that pushed her to the height of public celebrity. When the Princess came to see My Fair Lady, commentators were agog at her daring strapless gown of dark crimson taffeta with reporters nicknaming her “The Deep Pink Lady” (Tanfield c: 1).
Interestingly, Princess Margaret was reported to “be an old friend of My Fair Lady” with accounts noting that she was one of the first Britons “to receive a copy of the now famous long-playing record” (Tanfield c: 1). Yet, when the Queen saw the show two weeks earlier, she made a point of commenting that she’d “not heard any of the music before (“Queen, All A-Glitter,” 9). Given Margaret’s longstanding familiarity with the album, one wonders if the Queen was being totally frank here or, possibly, exercising diplomatic tact.
Due to territorial licensing agreements, the cast album of My Fair Lady was not legally available for sale or even public broadcast in the UK, Europe and Commonwealth countries till after the show’s London debut (“Columbia,” 6; “Britain is Smitten,” 22). However, such was the interest in the new big hit musical that, as Alan Jay Lerner (1978) notes:
“within three months of the New York opening, the black market sale of the American album became a flourishing industry in England. Stewards on ocean liners and airplanes were smuggling them in by the thousands and selling them at twice and three times the original price” (127; see also, “Columbia,” 6).
Now, far be it from the Parallel Julieverse to suggest that Her Majesty might have been party to the receipt of musical contraband––but for someone who’d never heard the score before she certainly took a very quick fancy to it. Barely days after the Royal Performance, the Queen and the rest of the royal family were spied dancing into the wee hours to My Fair Lady tunes at a military ball in Windsor (Tanfield b: 1). Which just goes to show that, in the heady season of 1958, My Fair Lady was a musical to which even the Queen of England could have danced all night!
Andrews, Julie. Home: A Memoir of My Early Years. London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 2008.
“Britain is Smitten by ‘Fair Lady’.” Life. 44 (9), 12 May, 1958: 20-25.
“Columbia ‘Fair Lady’ Set for London.” Billboard. 14 April 1958: 6
“Did Queen Blush at ‘My Fair Lady’?” The Baltimore Sun. 6 May 1958: 1.
“Fear Saxon Word May Shock Queen Elizabeth.” Port Angeles Evening News. 1 May 1958: 11.
"From New Playing Fields to 'My Fair Lady': Royal Events in England and in Belfast." Illustrated London News. 17 May 1958: 813.
Goring, Edward. “Naughty Word Stays in for the Queen.” Daily Mail. 30 April, 1958: 5.
Lerner, Alan Jay. The Street Where I Live. New York: Norton, 1978.
“Queen and Prince Laugh Gayly at Showing of ‘My Fair Lady’” Daily News. 6 May 1958: 11.
Tanfield, Paul. “Watches the Royal Performance of ‘My Fair Lady’.” Daily Mail. 6 May, 1958: 12.
__________. "The Queen Dances Until Dawn." Daily Mail. 17 May 1958: 1.
__________. "Stepping Out with My Pink Lady." Daily Mail. 23 May 1958: 14.
“The Queen, All A-Glitter, Sees ‘My Fair Lady’.” Daily Express. 6 May, 1958: 9.
© 2018, Brett Farmer. All Rights Reserved
