Wednesday 11 February 2015

My Fair Lady




A misogynist and snobbish phonetics professor agrees to a wager that he can take a poor flower girl and make her presentable in high society. Henry Higgins an arrogant, irascible takes a bet with Colonel Pickering, that he can transform an unrefined, cockney flower girl into a refined Victorian Lady with an aristocratic accent and pass her off as a duchess.

SCENE
THEATRE ENTRANCE. FLOWER MARKET. LATE EVENING.
FREDDY’S MUM:
Don’t just stand there Freddy, go and get a cab.
FREDDY:
Alright I’ll get one.
GENTEMAN:
I’m getting wet.
FREDDY:
(HAILING A CAB WITH A WHISTLE. BUMPS INTO ELIZA THE FLOWER GIRL SPILLING HER FLOWERS ON THE GROUND)
ELIZA:
Look where you’re going, dear. Look where you’re going.
FREDDY:
I’m so sorry.
ELIZA:
Two bunches of violets trod in the mud. A full day’s wages.
LADY:
Freddy. Freddy go and find a cab.
FREDDY:
Yes, mother (MOVING ALONG)
ELIZA:
Oh, he’s your son, is he? Well, if you’d done your duty by him as a mother should, you wouldn’t let him spoil a poor girl’s flowers and then run away without paying.
LADY:
Oh, go about your business, my girl.
ELIZA:
And you wouldn’t go off without paying either. Two bunches of violets trod in the mud.
COLONEL PICKERING:
(ENTER HOLDING UMBRELLA) Good Heaven’s.
LADY:
Sir, is there any sign of it stopping?
COLONEL PICKERING:
I’m afraid not. It’s worse than before.
LADY:
Oh dear.
ELIZA:
If it’s worse it’s a sign it’s nearly over. Cheer up Captain, buy a flower off a poor girl.
COLONEL PICKERING:
I’m sorry, I haven’t any change.
ELIZA:
Oh I can change ya half a crown. Here, take this for a tuppence.
COLONEL PICKERING:
I told you, I’m awfully sorry, I haven’t… oh wait a minute.
(DIGGING IN HIS POCKET) Oh yes. Here’s three ha’pence, if that’s any use to you.
ELIZA:
Thank you, sir.
MAN IN TRENCHCOAT:
Here, you be careful. Better give him a flower for it. There is a bloke here behind that pillar taking down every blessed word you’re saying. (EXITS)
ELIZA:
(LOOKING AROUND THE PILLAR BEHIND HER) I ain’t done nothing wrong by speaking to the gentleman.
(RAISING HER VOICE SLIGHTLY) I’ve a right to sell flowers if I keep off the curb. (LOUDER) I’m a respectable girl, so help me. (HYSTERICAL) I never spoke to him except to ask him to buy a flower off me.
CROWD:
(STARTS TO GATHER)
MAN:
Oh don’t start.
MAN 2:
What’s all the noise?
MAN 3:
There’s a tec taking her down.
ELIZA:
I’m making an honest living.
COLONEL PICKERING:
Who’s doing all that shouting? Where is it coming from?
ELIZA:
(TO COLONEL PICKERING) Oh sir, don’t let him charge me. They don’t know what it means to me. They’ll take away me character and drive me onto the streets for speaking to gentlemen.
HENRY HIGGINS:
(COMING OUT FROM BEHIND THE PILLAR) There, there, there. Who’s hurting you, you silly girl? What do you take me for?
ELIZA:
On my Bible oath, I never spoke a word.
HENRY HIGGINS:
Shut up. Shut up. Do I look like a policeman?
ELIZA:
Then what did you take down me words for? How do I know you took me down right? You just show me what you wrote about me.
HENRY HIGGINS:
(SHOWING HER HIS POCKET NOTE BOOK)
ELIZA:
Oh. What’s that? That ain’t proper writing. I can’t read it.
HENRY HIGGINS:
I can. (MIMICKING ELIZA) “I say, cap’n now buy a flor of a poor gal.”
ELIZA:
Oh, it’s because I called him Cap’n. I meant no ‘arm.
(TO COLONEL PICKERING) Sir, don’t let him lay a charge against me for a word like that.
COLONEL PICKERING:
Calm down. I’ll make no charge. (TO HENRY HIGGINS) Really, Sir, if you are a detective, you needn’t begin protecting me from young women until I ask you. Anyone could tell the girl meant no harm.
MAN 3:
He ain’t no tec. He’s a gentleman. Look at his boots.
HENRY HIGGINS:
How are all your people down at Selsey?
MAN 3:
Who told you my people come from Selsey?
HENRY HIGGINS:
Never mind. (TO ELIZA) How do you come up to be so far east? You were born in Lisson Grove.
ELIZA:
(SHRIEKING) Oh, what ‘arm is there my leaving Lisson Grove? It weren’t fit for a pig to live in and I had to pay four and six a week…
HENRY HIGGINS:
Live where you like but stop that noise.
ELIZA:
(CRYING)
COLONEL PICKERING:
Come, come, he can’t touch you. You’ve a right to live where you please.
ELIZA:
I’m a good girl, I am.
COLONEL PICKERING:
Yes, yes, yes.
MAN4:
(TO HENRY HIGGINS) Where do I come from?
HENRY HIGGINS:
Hoxton.
MAN4:
Well, who said I didn’t. Blimey, you know everything, you do.
LADY:
(TO HENRY HIGGINS) You Sir, do you think you could find me a taxi?
HENRY HIGGINS:
I don’t know whether you’ve noticed but it’s stopped raining. You can get a motor bus to Hampton Court. Well, that’s where you live, isn’t it?
LADY:
What impertinence.
MAN IN TRENCHCOAT:
Hey, tell him where he comes from, you wanna go fortune-telling.
HENRY HIGGINS:
Cheltenham, Harrow, Cambridge and uh, India?
COLONEL PICKERING:
Quite right.
MAN3:
Blimey, he ain’t a tec, he’s a blooming busybody.
COLONEL PICKERING:
If I may ask, sir, do you do this sort of thing for a living at a music hall?
HENRY HIGGINS:
Well, I have thought of it. Perhaps I will one day.
ELIZA:
He’s no gentleman. He ain’t, to interfere with a poor young girl.
COLONEL PICKERING:
How do you do it, may I ask?
HENRY HIGGINS:
Simple phonetics. The science of speech. That’s my profession, also my hobby. Anyone can spot an Irishman or a Yorkshire man by his brogue, but I can place a man within six miles. I can place him within two miles in London. Sometimes within two streets.
ELIZA:
(LOUDLY) Ought to be ashaymed of himself, unmanly coward.
COLONEL PICKERING:
Is there a living in that?
HENRY HIGGINS:
Oh, yes, quite a fat one.
ELIZA:
(LOUDLY) Let him mind his own business and leave a poor girl…
HENRY HIGGINS:
Woman! Cease this detestable boohooing instantly or else seek the shelter of some other place of worship.
ELIZA:
(IN A NORMAL TONE OF VOICE) I have a right to be here if I like, same as you.
HENRY HIGGINS:
A woman who utters such disgusting and depressing noises has no right to be anywhere. No right to live. Remember that you are a human being with a soul and the divine gift of articulate speech. That your native language is the language of Shakespeare and Milton and the Bible. Don’t sit there crooning like a bilious pigeon.
ELIZA:
(HURT AND SHOCKED) Ow!
HENRY HIGGINS:
(RECITING)Look at her
A prisoner of the gutters
Condemned by every syllable
She utters.
By right she should be taken out and hung,
For the cold clouded murder of the English tongue.
ELIZA:
Ow!
HENRY HIGGINS:
Heaven’s! What a sound! This is what the British population calls an elementary education.
COLONEL PICKERING:
Come sir, I think you picked a poor example.
HENRY HIGGINS:
Did I? (RECITING)
Hear them down in Soho Square dropping H’s everywhere. Speaking English anyway they like.
Hey, you sir, did you go to school?
MAN2:
What do you tike me for, a fool?
HENRY HIGGINS:
Well, no one taught him “take” instead of “tike”.
Hear a Yorkshire man, or worse
Hear a Cornishman converse
I’d rather hear a choir singing flat.
Chickens cackling in a barn
(POINTS TO ELIZA) Just like this one.
ELIZA:
Go-on! (SOUNDS LIKE GARN)
HENRY HIGGINS:
Garn. (WRITING IT DOWN. TO PICKERING) I ask you sir, what kind of word is that?
It’s ‘ow!’ and ‘garn!’ that keep her in her place.
Not her wretched clothes and dirty face.
Why can’t the English teach their children how to speak?
This verbal class distinction
By now, should be antique
If you spoke as she does, sir
Instead of the way you do
Why, you might be, selling flowers too.
COLONEL PICKERING:
I beg your pardon.
HENRY HIGGINS:
An Englishman’s way of speaking
Absolutely classifies him
The moment he talks
He makes some other Englishman
Despise him
One common language I’m afraid we’ll never get
Oh, why can’t the English learn to
Set a good example to people
Whose English is painful to your ears
The Scotch and the Irish
Leave you close to tears.
There even are places
Where English completely disappears
Why in America
They haven’t used it for years.
Why can’t the English
Teach their children how to speak?
Norwegians learn Norwegian
The Greeks are taught their Greek
In France every Frenchman knows
His language from A to Zed.
The French don’t care
What they do actually,
As long as they pronounce it properly.
Arabs learn Arabian
With the speed of summer lightening
The Hebrews learn it backwards
Which is absolutely frightening.
Use proper English
You’re regarded as a freak
Oh why can’t the English
Why can’t the English
Learn to speak? Thank you.
(SPEAKS)
You see this creature with her curb stone English? The English that’ll keep her in the gutter till the end of her days? Well Sir, in six months I could pass her off as a duchess at an Embassy Ball.
COLONEL PICKERING:
(LAUGHS)
HENRY HIGGINS:
I could even get her a job as a lady’s maid or a shop assistant, which requires better English.
ELIZA:
Here, what’s that you say?
HENRY HIGGINS:
Yes you squashed cabbage leaf. You disgrace to the noble architecture of these columns. You incarnate insult to the English language. I could pass you off as the Queen of Sheba. (LAUGHS)
ELIZA:
Ow! You don’t believe that, captain.
COLONEL PICKERING:
Anything’s possible. I for one am a student of Indian dialects.
HENRY HIGGINS:
Are you? Do you know Colonel Pickering, the author of spoken Sanskrit?
COLONEL PICKERING:
I am Colonel Pickering. Who are you?
HENRY HIGGINS:
(STANDING UP ABRUPTLY. EXCITED) I’m Henry Higgins, author of Higgins Universal Alphabet.
COLONEL PICKERING:
I came from India to meet you.
HENRY HIGGINS:
I was going to India to meet you.
COLONEL PICKERING:
Higgins!
HENRY HIGGINS:
Pickering! (SHAKING HANDS)
COLONEL PICKERING:
Higgins.
HENRY HIGGINS:
Where are you staying?
COLONEL PICKERING:
At the Carlton.
HENRY HIGGINS:
No you’re not. You’re staying at 27A Wimpole Street. You come along with me. We’ll have a little jaw over supper.
COLONEL PICKERING:
Right you are.
HENRY HIGGINS:
Indian dialects always fascinated me.
ELIZA:
Buy a flower, kind sir. I’m short for me lodgings.
HENRY HIGGINS:
Liar. You said you could change half a crown.
ELIZA:
You ought to be stuffed with nails, you ought. Here take the whole blooming basket for sixpence.
HENRY HIGGINS:
A reminder. (POURS A HANDFUL OF COINS INTO HER BASKET) How many are there actually?
COLONEL PICKERING:
How many what?
HENRY HIGGINS:
Indian dialects.
COLONEL PICKERING:
No fewer than a hundred and forty-seven distinct languages are recorded as vernacular in India. (EXIT WITHHENRY HIGGINS)
ELIZA:
Ow!  (LOOKING IN HER BASKET. COLLECTS THE COINS HAPPILY) Ah.
FLOWERMAN:
Shouldn’t we stand up gentlemen? We’ve got a blooming heiress in our midst.
OLD MAN:
Would you be looking for a good butler Eliza?
ELIZA:
Well you won’t do.
OLD MAN:
(SINGING) It’s rather dull in town I think I’ll take me to Paris.
FLOWERMAN2:
(SINGING) The Missus wants to open up the castle in Capri.
FLOWERMAN3:
(SINGING) Me doctor recommends a quiet summer by the sea.
ALL:
(SINGING) Wouldn’t it be loverly?
FLOWERMAN:
Where you bound for this year Eliza? Biarritz?
ELIZA:
(SINGING) All I want is a room somewhere,
Far away from the cold night air,
With one enormous chair
Oh, wouldn’t it be lovely?
Lots of chocolate for me to eat
Lots of coal making lots of heat
Warm face, warm hands, warm feet
Oh, wouldn’t it be lovely?
Oh so lovely sitting abso-bloomin’-lutely still
I would never budge till spring
Crept over the windowsill
Someone’s head resting on my knee
Warm and tender as he can be
Who takes good care of me
Oh, wouldn’t it be lovely. Lovely, lovely.
ALL:
(SINGING) All I want is a room somewhere
Far away from the cold night air
With one enormous chair
ELIZA:
(SINGING) Oh, wouldn’t it be lovely.
Lots of chocolate for me to eat
Lots of coal making lots of heat
Warm face, warm hands, warm feet
Oh, wouldn’t it be lovely.
Oh, so lovely sitting
Abso-bloomin’-lutely still
I would never budge till spring
Crept over the windowsill
ALL:
(SINGING) Someone’s head resting on my knee
Warm and tender as he can be
ELIZA:
(SINGING) Who takes good care of me
Oh, wouldn’t it be lovely?
ALL:
(SINGING) Lovely.
ELIZA:
(SINGING) Lovely.
ALL:
(WHISTLING AND DANCING)
ELIZA:
Oh, wouldn’t it be lovely? (CURTAINS)
ALFIE:
(ENTER WITH HIS TWO CRONIES)
CRONY1:
Come on Alfie, let’s go home now, this place is giving me the Willies.
ALFIE:
Home? What do you want to go home for? It’s nearly five o’clock. My daughter Eliza will be here somewhere. She ought to be good for a half a crown for a father that loves her.
CRONY2:
Loves her?
CRONY1:
That’s a laugh. You ain’t been near her for months.
ALFIE:
What’s that got to do with it? What’s half a crown after all I’ve given her?

When did you ever give her anything?
ALFIE:
Anything? I give her everything. I give her the greatest gift any human being can give to another. Life. I introduced her to this here planet, I did, with all its wonders and marvels. The sun that shines, the moon that glows. Hyde park to walk through on a fine spring night. The whole ruddy city of London to roam around in, selling her blooming flowers. I give her all that. Then I disappears and leaves her on her own to enjoy it.  Now, if that ain’t worth half a crown now and again, I’ll take my belt off and give her what for.
CRONY2:
You got a good heart Alfie but you want that half a crown out of Eliza, you better have a good story to go with it.
ALFIE:
Leave that to me my boy. (TO A MAN SLEEPING) Good morning George.
GEORGE:
Not a brass farthing.
ALFIE:
Good morning to you, Algernon. (BAR MAN IN THE DOORWAY)
ALGERNON:
Not a brass farthing. (SLAMS BAR DOOR)
FLOWER WOMAN:
(ENTER) Get moving, go on.
CABBAGE SELLER:
(ENTER) On with it.
VEGETABLE SELLER:
(ENTER) Veggies. Get your veggies.
SALAD SELLER:
Here we are. Nice salad greens.
ONION SELLER:
Lovely Spanish onions. Five pounds.
THREE HOUSEWIVES:
(ENTER WITH SHOPPING BASKETS)
HOUSEWIFE1:
This is it, nice bunches of veggies.
HOUSEWIFE2:
Take your pick.
HOUSEWIFE3:
Very tempting.
ALFIE:
There she is.
TOMATO SELLER:
(ENTER) Tomatoes over here. Nice garden tomatoes.
ALFIE:
Why Eliza what a surprise.
WOMAN:
(MISTAKEN IDENTITY) Hop along Charlie, you’re too old for me.
CRONY2:
Don’t know your own daughter?
CRONY1:
How are you gonna find her if you don’t know what she looks like?
ALFIE:
I know her. Come on. I’ll find her.
ELIZA:
(ENTER)
ALFIE:
Eliza what a surprise.
ELIZA:
Not a brass farthing.
ALFIE:
Here, you come here, Eliza.
ELIZA:
I ain’t going to take me hard-earned wages and let you pass them on to a bloody pub keeper.
ALFIE:
Eliza, you wouldn’t have the heart to send me home to your stepmother without a drop of liquid protection, now would you?
ELIZA:
Stepmother indeed.
ALFIE:
Well, I’m willing to marry her. It’s me that suffers by it. I’m a slave to that woman, Eliza. Just because I ain’t her lawful husband. Come on, slip your old dad just half a crown to go home on.
ELIZA:
Well, I had a bit of luck myself last night.
ALFIE:
Yeah?
ELIZA:
So here. But don’t keep coming around counting on half crowns from me.
ALFIE:
Ha-ha. Thank you Eliza. You’re a noble daughter.
ELIZA:
(EXIT)
ALFIE:
Beer, beer, glorious beer.
Fill yourself right up. (ENTERS THE BAR. CURTAIN)

SCENE
HOUSE OF HENRY HIGGINS.       
HENRY HIGGINS:
A, U, E... (PRACTICING PHONETICS)
Now how many vowel sounds do you think you heard altogether?
COLONEL PICKERING:
I believe I counted twenty-four.
HENRY HIGGINS:
Wrong by a hundred.
COLONEL PICKERING:
What?
HENRY HIGGINS:
To be exact, you heard 130. Now listen to them one at a time.
COLONEL PICKERING:
Must I? I’m really quite done up for one morning. (DOORBELL HEARD)
MRS. PEARCE:
(ENTER) There’s a young woman who wants to see you, sir.
HENRY HIGGINS:
A young woman? What does she want?
MRS. PEARCE:
She’s quite a common girl, sir. Very common indeed. I should have sent her away, only I thought perhaps you wanted her to talk into your machine.
HENRY HIGGINS:
Has she an interesting accent?
MRS. PEARCE:
Simply ghastly Mr. Higgins.
HENRY HIGGINS:
Good. Let’s have her in. show her in, Mrs. Pearce.
MRS. PEARCE:
Very well, sir. It’s for you to say.
HENRY HIGGINS:
This is rather a bit of luck. I’ll show you how I make records. We’ll set her talking and then I’ll take her down first in Bell’s visible speech, then in Broad Romic and then we’ll get her on the phonograph so that you can turn her on whenever you want with the written transcript before you.
MRS. PEARCE:
This is the young woman, sir.
ELIZA:
Good morning, my good man. Might I have the pleasure of a word with you face-to-face?
HENRY HIGGINS:
Oh no no no. This is the girl I jotted down last night. She’s no use. I’ve got all the records I want of the Lisson Grove lingo. I’m not going to waste another cylinder on that. Now be off with you, I don’t want you.
ELIZA:
Don’t be so saucy. You ain’t heard what I come for yet. (TO MRS. PEARCE) Did you tell him I come in a taxi?
MRS. PEARCE:
Nonsense, girl. What do you think a gentleman like Mr. Higgins cares what you came in?
ELIZA:
Oh, we are proud. Well he ain’t above giving lessons. Not him. I heard him say so. Well, I ain’t come here to ask for any compliment and if my money’s not good enough, I can go elsewhere.
HENRY HIGGINS:
Good enough for what?
ELIZA:
Good enough for you. Now you know, don’t you? I’m come to have my lessons, I am. And to pay for them too. Make no mistake.
HENRY HIGGINS:
Well… and what do you expect me to say?
ELIZA:
Well, if you was a gentleman, you might ask me to sit down, I think. Don’t I tell you I’m bringing you business?
HENRY HIGGINS:
Pickering, should we ask this baggage to sit down or shall we just throw her out of the window?
ELIZA:
Ow! I won’t be called baggage. Not when I have offered to pay like any lady.
COLONEL PICKERING:
What do you want, my girl?
ELIZA:
I want to be a lady in a flower shop instead of selling at the corner of Tottenham Court Road. But they won’t take me unless I can talk more genteel. He said he could teach me. Well, here I am. Ready to pay him, not asking any favour and he treats me as if I was dirt. I know what lessons cost as well as you do and I’m ready to pay.
HENRY HIGGINS:
How much?
ELIZA:
Now you’re talking. I thought you’d come off it when you saw a chance of getting back a bit of what you chucked at me last night. You’d had a drop in, hadn’t you, eh?
HENRY HIGGINS:
Sit down.
ELIZA:
Oh, if you’re going to make a compliment of it…
HENRY HIGGINS:
(IN A LOUD COMMAND) Sit down!
MRS. PEARCE:
Sit down, girl. Do as you’re told.
COLONEL PICKERING:
What’s your name?
ELIZA:
Eliza Doolittle.
COLONEL PICKERING:
Won’t you sit down, Miss. Doolittle?
ELIZA:
Oh, I don’t mind if I do. (TAKES A CHAIR)
HENRY HIGGINS:
(PICKING UP A PAD AND PENCIL) Now, how much do you propose to pay me for these lessons?
ELIZA:
Oh, I know what’s right. A lady friend of mine gets French lessons for eighteen pence an hour from a real French gentleman. Well, you wouldn’t have the face to ask me the same for teaching me my own language as you would for French. So I won’t give more than a shilling. Tike it or leave it.
HENRY HIGGINS:
Do you know Pickering, if you think of a shilling not as a simple shilling but as a percentage of this girl’s income, it works out as fully equivalent of sixty or seventy pounds from a millionaire. By George, it’s enormous. It’s the biggest offer I ever had.
ELIZA:
Sixty pounds? What are you talking about? Where would I get sixty pounds? I never offered you sixty pounds.
HENRY HIGGINS:
Hold your tongue.
ELIZA:
But I ain’t got sixty pounds. (STANDS UP. CRYING)
MRS. PEARCE:
Don’t cry, you silly girl. Sit down. Nobody’s going to touch your money.
HENRY HIGGINS:
Somebody’s going to touch you with a broomstick if you don’t stop snivelling. Sit down!
ELIZA:
(SITTING. SOFTLY) Oh, anybody would think you was my father.
HENRY HIGGINS:
If I decide to teach you, I’ll be worse than two fathers to you. Here. (HANDING HER HIS HANDKERCHIEF)
ELIZA:
What’s this for? To wipe your eyes. To wipe any part of your face that feels moist and remember, that’s your handkerchief and that’s your sleeve. Don’t confuse the one with the other if you want to become a lady in a shop.
MRS. PEARCE:
It’s no use to talk to her like that, Mr. Higgins. She doesn’t understand you. (TAKING THE HANDKERCHIEF FROM ELIZA)
ELIZA:
(ELIZA SNATCHES IT BACK) Here, give the handkerchief to me. He give it to me, not to you.
COLONEL PICKERING:
Higgins, I’m interested. What about your boast that you could pass her off as a duchess at the Embassy Ball, eh? I’ll say you’re the greatest teacher alive if you can make that good. I’ll bet you all the expenses of the experiment that you can’t do it. I’ll even pay for the lessons.
ELIZA:
Oh, you’re real good. Thank you, Cap’n.
HENRY HIGGINS:
You know, it’s almost irresistible. She’s so deliciously low. So horribly dirty.
ELIZA:
I ain’t dirty. I washed my face and hands before I come, I did.
HENRY HIGGINS:
I’ll take it. I’ll make a duchess of this draggle-tailed guttersnipe.
ELIZA:
Ow!
HENRY HIGGINS:
We’ll start today. Now. This moment. Take her away, Mrs. Pearce and clean her. Sandpaper if it won’t come off any other way. Is there a good fire in the kitchen?
MRS. PEARCE:
Yes. But…
HENRY HIGGINS:
Take all her clothes, burn them and order new ones. Just wrap her in brown paper till they come.
ELIZA:
You’re no gentleman. You’re not to talk of such things. I’m a good girl, I am and I know what the likes of you are, I do.
HENRY HIGGINS:
We want none of your slum prudery here, young woman. You’ve got to learn to behave like a duchess. Now take her away Mrs. Pearce and if she gives you any trouble, wallop her.
ELIZA:
I’ll call the police, I will.
MRS.
I’ve got no place to put her.
HENRY HIGGINS:
Well put her in the dustbin.
ELIZA:
Ow!
COLONEL PICKERING:
Come, Higgins, be reasonable.
MRS. PEARCE:
You must be reasonable, Mr. Higgins, really, you must. You can’t walk over everybody like this.
HENRY HIGGINS:
I? Walk over everybody? My dear Mrs. Pearce, my dear Pickering. I had no intention of walking over anybody. I merely suggested we should be kind to this poor girl. I didn’t express myself clearly because I didn’t wish to hurt her delicacy. Or yours.
MRS. PEARCE:
But sir, you can’t take a girl up like that as if you were picking up a pebble on the beach.
HENRY HIGGINS:
Why not?
MRS. PEARCE:
Why not? But you don’t know anything about her. What about her parents? She may be married.
ELIZA:
Go-on! (SOUNDS LIKE GARN)
HENRY HIGGINS:
There. As the girl very properly says, “garn”.
ELIZA:
Who’d marry me?
HENRY HIGGINS:
By George, Eliza. The streets will be strewn with the bodies of men shooting themselves for your sake before I’m done with you.
ELIZA:
Here. I’m going. He’s off his chump, he is. I don’t want no barmies teaching me.
HENRY HIGGINS:
Oh, mad, am I? All right, don’t ring up and order those clothes. Throw her out. (SNATCHING HIS HANDKERCHIEF FROM HER)
MRS. PEARCE:
Stop Mr. Higgins, I won’t allow it. Go home to your parents.
ELIZA:
I ain’t got no parents.
HENRY HIGGINS:
There you are. She ain’t got no parents. What’s all the fuss? Nobody wants her. She’s no use to anybody but me. Take her upstairs.
MRS. PEARCE:
But what’s to become of her? Is she to be paid anything? Oh, do be sensible, sir.
HENRY HIGGINS:
What would she do with money? She’ll have food and clothes. She’ll only drink if you give her money.
ELIZA:
Oh, you are a brute. It’s a lie. Nobody ever saw a sign of liquor on me. Oh sir, you’re a gentleman. Don’t let him speak to me like that.
COLONEL PICKERING:
Does it occur to you Higgins, the girl has some feelings.
HENRY HIGGINS:
Oh no, I don’t think so. No feelings we need to worry about. Well, have you, Eliza?
ELIZA:
I got my feelings same as anyone else.
MRS. PEARCE:
Mr. Higgins, I must know on what terms the girl is to be here. What’s to become of her when you’ve finished your teaching? You must look ahead a little, sir.
HENRY HIGGINS:
What’s to become of her if we leave her in the gutter? Answer me that Mrs. Pearce.
MRS. PEARCE:
That’s her own business, not yours.
HENRY HIGGINS:
When I’m done, we’ll throw her back, then it will be her own business again. That will be all right, won’t it?
ELIZA:
You’ve no feeling in your heart. You don’t care for nothing but yourself. I’ve had enough of this. I’m going, I am. You ought to be ashamed of yourself, you ought. (OPENS DOOR TO EXIT)
HENRY HIGGINS:
Have some chocolates, Eliza.
ELIZA:
How do I know what might be in them? I’ve heard of girls being drugged by the likes of you.
HENRY HIGGINS:
Pledge of good faith. I’ll take one half and you take the other. (POPPING A HALF IN HIS MOUTH AND A HALF IN HERS) You’ll have boxes of them everyday. You’ll live on them, eh?
ELIZA:
I wouldn’t have ate it, only I’m too ladylike to take it out of my mouth.
HENRY HIGGINS:
Think of it, Eliza. (PULLING HER BACK INTO THE ROOM) Think of  chocolates and taxis and gold and diamonds.
ELIZA:
Ow! I don’t want no gold and no diamonds. I’m a good girl, I am.
COLONEL PICKERING:
Higgins, I really must interfere. Mrs. Pearce is quite right. If this girl’s going to put herself in your hands for six months for an experiment in teaching, she must understand thoroughly what she’s doing.
HENRY HIGGINS:
Mm. Eliza, you are to stay here for the next six months learning how to speak beautifully, like a lady in a florist shop. If you are good and do whatever you are told, you shall sleep in a proper bedroom, have lots to eat and money to buy chocolates and take rides in taxis. But, if you are naughty and idle, you shall sleep in the back kitchen amongst the black beetles and be walloped by Mrs. Pearce with a broomstick. At the end of six months, you shall be taken to Buckingham Palace in a carriage, beautifully dressed. If the king finds out you are not a lady, the police will take you to the Tower of London where your head will be cut off as a warning to other presumptuous flower girls. But, if you are not found out, you shall have a present of seven and six to start life with as a lady in a shop. If you refuse this offer, you will be the most ungrateful, wicked girl and the angels will weep for you. Now, are you satisfied, Pickering?
COLONEL PICKERING:
I don’t understand what you are talking about.
HENRY HIGGINS:
Oh, could I put it more plainly or fairly, Mrs. Pearce?
MRS. PEARCE:
Come with me, Eliza.
HENRY HIGGINS:
That’s right Mrs. Pearce, bundle her off to the bathroom. You know you can’t be a nice girl inside if you’re dirty outside.
ELIZA:
You’re a great bully, you are. I won’t stay here if I don’t like it. I won’t let nobody wallop me. I’ve never had a bath in my life. Not what you call a proper one.
MRS. PEARCE:
Don’t answer back, girl.
ELIZA:
If I’d known what I was letting myself in for, I wouldn’t have come here. I’ve always been a good girl, I am and I won’t be put upon.
(EXIT ELIZA AND MRS. PEARCE)
HENRY HIGGINS:
In six months, in three if she has a good ear and a quick tongue. I’ll take her anywhere and I’ll pass her off as anything. I’ll make a queen of that barbarous wretch.
ELIZA:
(VOICE HEARD) Take your hands off me.
MRS. PEARCE:
(VOICE HEARD) Come here.
ELIZA:
(VOICE HEARD) No!
MRS. PEARCE:
(VOICE HEARD) I won’t hurt you.
ELIZA:
(VOICE HEARD) Let me go. Take your hands off me. I’m a good girl I am. Take your hands off me your hear.
MRS. PEARCE:
(VOICE HEARD) Eliza I won’t have it. I wouldn’t hurt you.
COLONEL PICKERING:
Higgins forgive the bluntness, but if I’m to be in this business, I shall feel responsible for the girl. I hope it’s clearly understood that no advantage is to be taken of her position.
H
What that thing? Sacred, I assure you.
COLONEL PICKERING:
Come now Higgins, you know what I mean. This is no trifling matter. Are you a man of good character where women are concerned?
H
Have you ever met a man of good character where women are concerned?
COLONEL PICKERING:
Yes, very frequently.
H
Well, I haven’t. I find the moment I let a woman make friends with me, she becomes jealous, exacting, suspicious and a damned nuisance. And I find the moment that I make friends with a woman, I become selfish and tyrannical. So here I am, a confirmed old bachelor and likely to remain so. Well, after all Pickering,
(RECITES) I’m an ordinary man
Who deserves nothing more
Than just an ordinary chance
To live exactly as he likes
And do precisely what he wants
An average man am I
Of no eccentric whim
Who likes to live his life
Free of strife
Doing whatever he thinks
Is best for him.
Well, just an ordinary man
But, let a woman in your life
And your serenity is through
She’ll redecorate your home
From the cellar to the dome
Then go on to the enthralling fun
Of overhauling you.
Let a woman in your life
And you’re up against a wall
Make a plan and you will find
She has something else in mind
And so rather than do either
You do something else
That neither likes at all
You want to talk of Keats or Milton
She only wants to talk of love
You go to see a play or ballet
And spend it searching for her glove.
Let a woman in your life
And you invite eternal strife
Let them buy their wedding bands
For those anxious little hands
I’d be equally as willing
For a dentist to be drilling
Than to ever let a woman I my life.
I’m a very gentleman
Even-tempered and good-natured
Who you never hear complain
Who has the milk of human kindness
By the quart in every vein
A patient man am I
Down to my fingertips
The sort who never could
Ever would
Let an insulting remark escape his lips
A very gentle man
But, let a woman in your life
And patience hasn’t got a chance
She will beg you for advice
Your reply will be concise
And she’ll listen very nicely
Then go out and do precisely what she wants
You are a man of grace and polish
Who never spoke above a hush
Now all at once you’re using language
That would make a sailor blush
Let a woman in your life.
And you’re plunging in a knife
Let the other of my sex
Tie the knot around their necks
I’d prefer a new edition
Of the Spanish Inquisition
Than to ever let a woman in my life.
I’m a quiet living man
Who prefers to spend the evenings
In the silence of his room
Who likes an atmosphere as restful
As an undiscovered tomb
A pensive man am I
Of philosophic joys
Who likes to meditate, contemplate
Free from humanity’s mad
Inhuman noise
A quiet living man
But let a woman in your life
And your sabbatical is through
In a line that never ends
Come an army of her friends
Come to jabber and to chatter
And to tell her what the matter
Is with you!
(LONG PAUSE)
I shall never let a woman in my life.

SCENE
FLOWER MARKET.
BAR MAN:
(VOICE HEARD) Get out of here. (THROWING THE CRONIES) The two of you get out too. Come on Doolittle. (ENTER DOOLITTLE) And remember, drinks are to be paid for or not drunk.
ALFIE:
Thanks for your hospitality, George. Send the bill to Buckingham Palace. Come on.
CRONY1:
Well Alfie, there’s nothing else to do. I guess it’s back to work.
ALFIE:
What? Don’t you dare mention that word in my presence again. Look at all these poor blighters down here. (WORKMEN DIGGING THE ROAD) I used to do that sort of thing once just for exercise. It’s not worth it. Takes up your whole day. Oh, don’t worry, boys. We’ll get out of this somehow.
CRONY2:
How do you think you’re going to do that, Alfie?
ALFIE:
How? Same as always. Faith, hope and a little bit of luck.
(SINGING)
The lord above gave man
An arm of iron
So he could do his job and never shirk
The lord above gave man
An arm of iron but
With a little bit of luck,
With a little bit of luck,
Someone else will do the blinkin’ work.
With a little bit
With a little bit
With a little bit of luck
You’ll never work.
The lord above made liquor
For temptation
To see if man could turn away
From sin
The lord above made liquor
For temptation but
With a little bit of luck,
With a little bit of luck,
When temptation comes
You’ll give right in.
With a little bit
With a little bit
With a little bit of luck
You’ll give right in.
Oh you can walk
The straight and narrow
But with a little bit of luck
You’ll run amuck
The gentle sex
Was made for man to marry
To share his nest
And see his food is cooked
The gentle sex was made for man to marry but
With a little bit of luck
With a little bit of luck
You can have it all and not get hooked.
With a little bit
With a little bit
With a little bit of luck
You won’t get hooked With a little bit
With a little bit
With a little bit of luck
With a little bit of bloomin’ luck.
They’re always throwing goodness at you
But with a little bit of luck a man can duck
The lord above made man to help his neighbour
No matter where
On land, or sea, or foam.
The lord above made man to help his neighbour
With a little bit of luck
With a little bit of luck
When he comes around you won’t be home.
With a little bit
With a little bit
With a little bit of bloomin’ luck.
STREET VENDOR:
You make a good suffragette, Alfie.
ALFIE:
Oh, get along with you.
STEPMOTHER:
Why there’s the lucky man now. The Honourable Alfie Doolittle.
ALFIE:
What are you doing in Eliza’s house?
STEPMOTHER:
Her former residence. You can buy your own drinks now, Alfie Doolittle. Fallen into a tub of butter, you have.
ALFIE:
What are you talking about?
STEPMOTHER:
Your daughter, Eliza. You’re a lucky man, Alfie Doolittle.
ALFIE:
Well, what about Eliza?
STEPMOTHER:
Oh! He don’t know. Her own father and he don’t know.
NEIGHBOURS:
(LAUGH)
STEPMOTHER:
Moved in with a swell, Eliza has. Left here in a taxi all by herself, smart as paint and ain’t been home for three days.
ALFIE:
Go on.
STEPMOTHER:
Then this morning I got a message from her. She wants her things sent over. To 27A Wimpole Street, care of Professor Higgins. And what things does she want?
ALFIE:
What?
STEPMOTHER:
Her birdcage and her Chinese fan.
ALFIE:
(LAUGHING) I knew she had a career in front of her. Harry boy, we’re in for a booze-up. The sun is shining on Alfred P. Doolittle.
(SINGING) A man was made
To help support his children
Which is the right and proper thing to do
A man was made
To help support his children but
With a little bit of luck
With a little bit of luck
They’ll go out and start supporting you.
With a little bit
With a little bit
With a little bit of luck
They’ll work for you.
With a little bit
With a little bit
With a little bit of bloomin’ luck.
(PICKS UP A COIN FROM THE GROUND AND WALKS INTO THE BAR WITH A LADY)

SCENE
HOME OF HENRY HIGGINS.
ELIZA:
(ELIZA PRACTICING WITH A VOICE MACHINE) Aaaaa.
MRS. PEARCE:
(ENTER) The mail sir.
HENRY HIGGINS:
Pay the bills and say no to the invitations.
ELIZA:
Aaaaa. Aaaaaa. (BLOWING HER NOSE LOUDLY INTO A KERCHIEF)
MRS. PEARCE:
You simply cannot go on working the girl this way. Making her say her alphabet over and over, from sunup to sundown, even during meals. You’ll exhaust yourself. When will it stop?
ELIZA:
Aaaaa?
HENRY HIGGINS:
When she does it properly, of course.  Is that all Mrs. Pearce?
MRS. PEARCE:
There’s another letter from that American millionaire, Ezra D. Wallingford. He still wants you to lecture for his Moral Reform League.
HENRY HIGGINS:
Yes, well, throw it away.
MRS. PEARCE:
It’s the third letter he’s written you, sir. You should atleast answer it.
HENRY HIGGINS:
Alright. Leave it on the desk, Mrs. Pearce. I’ll try and get to it.
BUTLER:
(ENTER) If you please, sir, there’s a dustman downstairs, Alfred P. Doolittle, who wants to see you. He says you have his daughter here.
COLONEL PICKERING:
I say.
HENRY HIGGINS:
Well send the blackguard up.
BUTLER:
(EXIT)
COLONEL PICKERING:
May not be a blackguard, Higgins.
HENRY HIGGINS:
Nonsense. Ofcourse he’s a blackguard, Pickering.
COLONEL PICKERING:
Whether he is or not, I’m afraid we’ll have some trouble with him.
HENRY HIGGINS:
No, I think not. Any trouble to be had, he’ll have it with me, not I with him.
BUTLER:
(ENTERS WITH DOOLITTLE) Doolittle, sir. (EXIT BUTLER)
ALFIE:
(TO COLONEL PICKERING) Professor Higgins?
HENRY HIGGINS:
(YELLS) Here.
ALFIE:
Where? Oh, good morning, governor. I come about a very serious matter, governor.
HENRY HIGGINS:
Brought up in Hounslow. Mother Welsh, I should think. What is it you want Doolittle?
ALFIE:
I want my daughter, that’s what I want, you see?
HENRY HIGGINS:
Well, ofcourse you do. You’re her father aren’t you? I’m glad to see you have a spark of family feeling left. She’s in there. And yes, take her away at once.
ALFIE:
What?
HENRY HIGGINS:
Take her away. Do you think I’m going to keep your daughter for you?
ALFIE:
Now, is this reasonable, governor? Is it fair to take advantage of a man like that? The girl belongs to me. You got her. Where do I come in?
HENRY HIGGINS:
How dare you come here and attempt to blackmail me. You sent her here on purpose.
ALFIE:
Now, don’t take a man up like that, governor.
HENRY HIGGINS:
The police shall take you up. This is a plan, a plot to extort money by threats. I shall telephone the police.
ALFIE:
Have I asked you for one brass farthing? I’ll leave it to this gentleman here. Have I said a word about money?
HENRY HIGGINS:
What else did you come for?
ALFIE:
Well… what would a bloke come for? Be human, governor. (LAUGHS  ON HENRY HIGGIN’S FACE)
HENRY HIGGINS:
(COVERS HIS NOSE FROM THE BAD BREADTH) Alfred, you sent her here on purpose.
ALFIE:
So help me, governor, I never did.
HENRY HIGGINS:
Then how did you know she was here?
ALFIE:
I’d tell you, governor, if you’d only let me get a word in. I’m willing to tell ya. I’m wanting to tell ya. I’m waiting to tell ya.
HENRY HIGGINS:
You know, Pickering, this chap’s got a certain natural gift of rhetoric. Observe the rhythm of his native woodnotes wild. That’s the Welsh strain in him. How did you know Eliza was here if you didn’t send her?
ALFIE:
Well, she sent back for her luggage and I got to hear about it. What was I to think from that, governor? I ask you, as a parent, what was I to think?
HENRY HIGGINS:
So you came here to rescue her from a place worse than death, eh?
ALFIE:
Just so governor, that’s right.
MRS. PEARCE:
(ENTER)
HENRY HIGGINS:
Yes, Mrs. Pearce. Mrs. Pearce, Eliza’s father has come to take her away. Give her to him will you?
ALFIE:
Now, wait a minute, governor, wait a minute. You and me is men of the world ain’t we?
HENRY HIGGINS:
Men of the world, are we? Yes, you better go, Mrs. Pearce.
MRS. PEARCE:
I think so indeed, sir. (EXIT)
ALFIE:
Here, governor, I’ve sort of took a fancy to you and… (LAUGHS IN HENRY’S FACE AGAIN) If you want the girl, well, I ain’t so set on having her back home again, but what I might be open to is an arrangement. All I ask is my rights as a father. You’re the last man alive to expect me to let her go for nothing. Oh I can see you’re one of the straight sort, governor. So, what’s a five pound note to you? And what’s Eliza to me?
COLONEL PICKERING:
I think you ought to know Doolittle, that Mr. Higgin’s intentions are entirely honourable.
ALFIE:
Ofcourse they are, governor. If I thought they wasn’t, I’d ask fifty.
HENRY HIGGINS:
Do you mean to say you’d sell your daughter for fifty pounds?
COLONEL PICKERING:
Have you no morals man?
ALFIE:
No, no, I can’t afford them, governor. Neither could you if you were as poor as me. Not that I mean any harm mind you. If Eliza is going to have a bit out of this, why not me too, eh? Why not? Well, look at it my way. (DUSTING OFF A CHAIR WITH HIS WELL WORN HAT AND TAKES A SEAT) What am I? I ask you, what am I? I’m one of the undeserving poor, that’s what I am. Now, think what that means to a man. It means he’s up against middle-class morality for all of time. If there’s anything going and I puts in for a bit of it, it’s always the same story. “you’re undeserving so you can’t have it.” But my needs is as great as the most deserving widows that ever got money out of six different charities in one week for the death of the same husband. I don’t need less than a deserving man might need, I need more. I don’t eat less hearty than he does. And I drink, oh a lot more. I’m playing straight with you. I ain’t pretending to be deserving. No, I’m undeserving. And I mean to go on being undeserving. I like it and that’s the truth. But will you take advantage of a man’s nature? To do him out of the price of his own daughter, what he’s brought up, fed and clothed by the sweat of his brow till she growed big enough to be interesting to you two gentlemen? Well, is five pounds unreasonable? I put it to you. And I leave it to you.
HENRY HIGGINS:
You know Pickering, if we took this man in hand for three months, he could choose between a seat in the cabinet and a popular pulpit in Wales. We’d better give him a fiver.
COLONEL PICKERING:
He’ll make bad use of it, I’m afraid.
ALFIE:
Oh, not me, governor. So help me, I won’t. Just one good spree for meself and the missus. Giving pleasure to ourselves and employment to others. And satisfaction to you to know it ain’t been thrown away. You couldn’t spend it better.
HENRY HIGGINS:
Oh, this is irresistible. Let’s give him ten.
ALFIE:
No, the missus wouldn’t have the heart to spend ten governor. Ten pounds is a lot of money. Makes a man feel prudent-like and then goodbye to happiness. No, you just give me what I ask, governor. Not a penny less, not a penny more.
COLONEL PICKERING:
I rather draw the line at encouraging this sort of immorality, Doolittle. Why don’t you marry that missus of yours eh? After all, marriage isn’t so frightening. You married Eliza’s mother.
ALFIE:
Who told you that governor?
PICK
Well, nobody told me. I concluded, naturally.
HENRY HIGGINS:
If we listen to this man for another minute, we shall have no convictions left. Five pounds, I think you said. (HANDING HIM FIVE POUNDS)
ALFIE:
Thank you, governor, thank you.
HENRY HIGGINS:
Are you sure you won’t have ten?
ALFIE:
No, no, perhaps another time. (TURNS TO EXIT)
ELIZA:
(ENTER) I won’t, I won’t, I won’t!
ALFIE:
(BUMPING INTO ELIZA) I beg your pardon, miss.
ELIZA:
I won’t say those ruddy vowels one more time.
ALFIE:
Blimey it’s Eliza. Well, I never thought she’d clean up so good-looking. She does me credit, don’t she, governor?
ELIZA:
Here, what you doin’ here?
ALFIE:
Now, now, you hold your tongue and don’t you give these gentlemen none of your lip. If you have any trouble with her, governor, give her a few licks of the strap. That’s the way to improve her mind. Well, good morning gentlemen. (SMACKING ELIZA ON THE BOTTOM) Cheerio, Eliza.
ELIZA:
Mah! (STICKING HER TONGUE OUT BEHIND HIM)
HENRY HIGGINS:
There’s a man for you. A philosophical genius of the first water. Mrs. Pearce, write to Mr. Ezra Wallingford and tell him if he wants a lecturer to get in touch with Mr. Alfred P. Doolittle, a common dustman, one of the most original moralists in England.
Mrs
Yes, sir.
ELIZA:
Here, what did he come for?
HENRY HIGGINS:
Say your vowels.
ELIZA:
I know me vowels. I know them before I come.
HENRY HIGGINS:
If you know them, say them.
ELIZA:
Ay, eey, iiy, oou, u.
HENRY HIGGINS:
Stop. A, e, I, o, u.
ELIZA:
That’s what I said, Ay, eey, iiy, oou, u. that’s what I been’ sayin’ for three days and I won’t say them no more.
COLONEL PICKERING:
(PLACING A GENTLE HAND ON HER SHOULDER) I know it’s difficult, Mrs. Doolittle, but try to understand.
HENRY HIGGINS:
There’s no use explaining, Pickering. As a military man, you ought to know that. Drilling is what she needs. Now you leave her alone or she’ll be turning to you for sympathy.
COLONEL PICKERING:
Very well, if you insist but have a little patience with her, Higgins.
HENRY HIGGINS:
Ofcourse. Now say ‘A’.
ELIZA:
You ain’t got no heart, you ain’t.
HENRY HIGGINS:
A.
ELIZA:
Ay.
HENRY HIGGINS:
A.
ELIZA:
(LOUDLY) Ay.
HENRY HIGGINS:
Eliza. I promise you, you’ll say your vowels correctly before this day is out or there’ll be no lunch, no dinner and no chocolates. A.
ELIZA:
(OBEDIENTLY) A.
HENRY HIGGINS:
All right Eliza, say it again. (HANDING HER A BOOK)
ELIZA:
(SHE READS) The r’ayn in sp’ayn stays maynly in the playin.
HENRY HIGGINS:
(SIGHS) The rain in spain stays mainly in the plain.
ELIZA:
Didn’t I sa’y that?
HENRY HIGGINS:
No Eliza, you didn’t s’ay that. You didn’t even say that. (TAKING THE BOOK FROM HER) Every night before you get into bed, where you used to say your prayers, I want you to say, “the rain in spain stays mainly in the plain”. Fifty times. You’ll get much further with the lord if you learn not to offend his ears. Now for your H’s. (REACHING FOR A BOOK ON THE SHELF) Pickering this is going to be ghastly.
COLONEL PICKERING:
Control yourself, Higgins. Give the girl a chance.
HENRY HIGGINS:
Oh well, I suppose you can’t expect her to get it right the first time. Come here Eliza and watch closely. Now. You see that flame? Everytime you pronounce the letter H correctly, the flame will jump and everytime you drop your H, the flame will remain stationary. That’s how you’ll learn if you’ve done it correctly. In time your ear will hear the difference. See it better in the mirror. (GIVES THE MIRROR A SPIN) Now listen carefully. (SPEAKS INTO A FUNNEL) In Hartford, Hereford and Hampshire, hurricanes hardly ever happen. Now repeat that after me. (HANDS HER THE FUNNEL) In Hartford, Hereford and Hampshire, hurricanes hardly ever happen.
ELIZA:
In ‘artford, ‘ereford and ‘ampshire, ‘urricanes ‘ardly ever ‘appen.
HENRY HIGGINS:
Have you no ear at all?
ELIZA:
Should I do it over?
HENRY HIGGINS:
No, please. Start from the very beginning. Just do this. Go, ha, ha, ha, ha.
ELIZA:
Ha, ha, ha, ha.
HENRY HIGGINS:
Good. Go on, go on.
ELIZA:
Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha (CONTINUES)
HENRY HIGGINS:
Does the same thing hold true in India? Is it truly a habit to them, their dropping a letter like the letter H, using it where it doesn’t belong, like ‘hever’ instead of ‘ever’? Why is it when slavs learn English, have a tendency to do it with the G’s.
COLONEL PICKERING:
The girl, Higgins.
HENRY HIGGINS:
Go on, go on, go on.
ELIZA:
Ha. Ha. Ha. Ha. Ha.
HENRY HIGGINS:
Now. (PLAYING A XYLOPHONE) How kind of you to let me come.
ELIZA:
How kind of you to let me come.
HENRY HIGGINS:
No, kind of you, kind of you. Kind. (PLAYING A XYLOPHONE) How kind of you to let me come.
ELIZA:
How kind’a you to let me come.
HENRY HIGGINS:
No, no. Again Eliza. How kind of you to let me come.
ELIZA:
How kind’a you to let me come.
HENRY HIGGINS:
Kind of you. Kind of you. It’s like “cup of tea”, kind of you. Cup of tea. Say “cup of tea”.
ELIZA:
Cupp’a tea.
HENRY HIGGINS:
No, no. A, cup, of, tea. (CUTTING A SLICE OF CAKE) It’s awfully good cake, this. I wonder where Mrs. Pearce gets it.
COLONEL PICKERING:
Mm. first rate and those strawberry starts are delicious
HENRY HIGGINS:
Mm. Did’ya try the playn cake? (LOOKING UP AT PICKERING. SIGHS) (TO ELIZA) Try it again.
COLONEL PICKERING:
Did you try the …?
HENRY HIGGINS:
Pickering! Again Eliza.
ELIZA:
Cuppa tea.
HENRY HIGGINS:
Oh no. can’t you hear the difference? Look, put your tongue forward until it squeezes on the top of your lower teeth. And then say “cup”. (WAGGING A BISCUIT UNDER HER NOSE)
ELIZA:
Cup. (LOOKS ON HUNGRILY)
HENRY HIGGINS:
Then say, of.
ELIZA:
Of.
HENRY HIGGINS:
Then say, “cup, cup, cup cup, of, of, of, of.”
ELIZA, HENRY HIGGINS:
Cup, cup, cup cup, of, of, of, of.
Cup, cup, cup cup, of, of, of, of.
ELIZA:
cup, cup.. of, of…. (LOOKS ON HUNGRILY)
COLONEL PICKERING:
By jove Higgins, that was a glorious tea. Why don’t you finish the last of that strawberry tart? I couldn’t eat another thing.
HENRY HIGGINS:
Oh, I couldn’t touch it.
COLONEL PICKERING:
Shame to waste it.
HENRY HIGGINS:
Oh, it won’t be wasted. I know somebody who’s immensely fond of strawberry tarts.
ELIZA:
(EAGERLY HOPING FOR TART)
HENRY HIGGINS:
(FEEDS THE TART TO THE BIRD) Cheep, cheep, cheep, cheep.
ELIZA:
Ow!
HENRY HIGGINS:
(POPS MARBLES IN ELIZA’S MOUTH) One, two, three, four. Five. Six marbles. Now, I want you to read this and I want you to enunciate every word just as if the marbles were not in your mouth. (READING FROM A SHEET) “With blackest moss the flower-pots were thickly crusted, one and all”. Each word here as clear as a bell.
ELIZA:
(WITH A MOUTH FULL OF MARBLES) With blackest moss the flower pots… I Can’t. I can’t.
COLONEL PICKERING:
I say Higgins, are those pebbles really necessary?
HENRY HIGGINS:
If they were necessary for Demosthenes, they are necessary for Eliza Doolittle.  Go on Eliza.
ELIZA:
(WITH A MOUTH FULL OF MARBLES) With blackest moss the flower pots were thickly crusted, one and all.
HENRY HIGGINS:
I can’t understand a word, not a word.
ELIZA:
(WITH A MOUTH FULL OF MARBLES) With blackest moss the flower pots were thickly crusted, one and all. With blackest moss the flower… (CONTINUES WITHOUT STOPPING)
COLONEL PICKERING:
Higgins, perhaps that poem is a little too difficult for the girl. Why don’t you try something simpler, like “The Owl and the Pussycat”? Oh yes, that’s a charming one.
HENRY HIGGINS:
Well Pickering, I can’t hear a word that girl is saying.
ELIZA:
(SWALLOWING A MARBLE WITH A GULPING SOUND)
HENRY HIGGINS:
What’s the matter?
ELIZA:
(SPITTING OUT THE MARBLES) I swallowed one.
HENRY HIGGINS:
Oh, it doesn’t matter, I got plenty more. Open your mouth. One. Two.  A, not Ay, O, not Ow, don’t say rine, say rain. (PLACES A HOT WATER BAG ON HIS HEAD) The rain in Spain stays mainly in the plain.
ELIZA:
(WITH A MOUTH FULL OF MARBLES) I can’t. I’m so tired. I’m so tired.
COLONEL PICKERING:
God sakes Higgins, it must be three o’clock in the morning. Do be reasonable.
HENRY HIGGINS:
I am always reasonable. (SIGHS) Eliza, if I can go on with a blistering headache, you can.
ELIZA:
I got a headache too.
HENRY HIGGINS:
Oh, here. (GIVING HER THE HOT WATER BAG) I know your head aches. I know you are tired. I know your nerves are as raw as meat in a butcher’s window. But think what you are trying to accomplish. (TAKING A SEAT NEXT TO ELIZA) Just think what you are dealing with. The majesty and grandeur of the English language, it’s the greatest possession we have. The noblest thoughts that ever flowed through the hearts of men are contained in its extraordinary, imaginative and musical mixtures of sounds. And that’s what you’ve set yourself out to conquer, Eliza. And conquer it you will. (GETS UP AND WALKS AWAY TIRED) Now try it again.
ELIZA:
(SLOWLY AND CORRECTLY) The rain in Spain stays mainly in the plain.
HENRY HIGGINS:
What was that?
ELIZA:
(SLOWLY AND CORRECTLY) The rain in Spain stays mainly in the plain.
HENRY HIGGINS:
Again.
ELIZA:
(CORRECTLY. FASTER) The rain in Spain stays mainly in the plain.
HENRY HIGGINS:
I think she’s got it. I think she’s got it.
ELIZA:
(SINGING) The rain in Spain stays mainly in the plain.
HENRY HIGGINS:
(EXCITED) By George, she’s got it. By George, she’s got it. Now once again. Where does it rain?
ELIZA:
(SINGING) On the plain, on the plain.
HENRY HIGGINS:
And where is that soggy plain?
ELIZA:
(SINGING) In Spain, in Spain.
ELIZA, HENRY, PICKERING:
(TOGETHER) The rain in Spain stays mainly in the plain.
HENRY HIGGINS:
Bravo!
ELIZA, HENRY, PICKERING:
(TOGETHER. SHAKING HANDS IN VICTORY) The rain in Spain stays mainly in the plain.
HENRY HIGGINS:
In Hartford, Hereford and Hampshire…
ELIZA:
…hurricanes hardly ever happen.
HENRY HIGGINS:
(PLAYING THE XYLOPHONE)
ELIZA:
How kind of you to let me come.
HENRY HIGGINS:
Now, once again. (SINGING) Where does it rain?
ELIZA:
(SINGING) On the plain, on the plain.
HENRY HIGGINS:
And where is that blasted plain?
ELIZA:
In Spain, in Spain.
ELIZA, HENRY HIGGINS:
(TOGETHER. DANCING) The rain in Spain stays mainly in the plain. (ALL LAUGH)
HENRY HIGGINS:
We’re making fine progress, Pickering. I think the time has come to try her out.
MRS. PEARCE:
(ENTER) Are you feeling all right, Mr. Higgins?
HENRY HIGGINS:
Yes, I’m feeling fine, Mrs. Pearce.  How are you?
MRS. PEARCE:
Very well, sir, thank you.
HENRY HIGGINS:
Let’s test her in public and see how she fares.
MRS. PEARCE:
Mr. Higgins, I was awakened by a dreadful pounding. Do you know what it might have been?
HENRY HIGGINS:
Pounding? I didn’t hear any pounding. You do, Pickering?
COLONEL PICKERING:
No.
HENRY HIGGINS:
You know if this goes on Mrs. Pearce, you’d better see a doctor. I know. We’ll take her to the races.
COLONEL PICKERING:
The races?
HENRY HIGGINS:
My mother’s box at Ascot.
COLONEL PICKERING:
You’ll consult your mother first, ofcourse?
HENRY HIGGINS:
Oh, yes, ofcourse. (LOOKS OVER AT ELIZA. ELIZA LOOKS DREAMILY INTO SPACE) No, I think I should better surprise her. Now let’s go to bed. First thing in the morning, we’ll go out and we’ll buy her a dress. Now get on with your work, Eliza.
MRS. PEARCE:
Mr. Higgins, it’s early in the morning.
HENRY HIGGINS:
What better time to work than early in the morning? (TO PICKERING) Where does one buy a lady’s gown?
COLONEL PICKERING:
Whitley’s ofcourse.
HENRY HIGGINS:
How do you know that?
COLONEL PICKERING:
Common knowledge.
HENRY HIGGINS:
Let’s not buy her anything too flowery. Despise those gowns with sort of weeds here and weeds there. I want to buy something so simple and modest and elegant, is what’s it’s called. Perhaps with a bow. Yes, I think that’s just right. (EXIT WITH PICKERING)
MRS. PEARCE:
You’ve all been working much too hard. I think the strain is beginning to show.
ELIZA:
(DREAMILY LOOKS ON)
MRS. PEARCE:
Eliza, I don’t care what Mr. Higgins says, you must put down your books and go to bed. (CURTAINS)

SCENE
ASCOT. RACES.
GENTRY:
(RECITING PLACIDLY)
Every duke and Earl
And peer is here
Everyone who should be here
Is here
What a smashing
Positively dashing spectacle
The Ascot opening day.
At the gate are all the horses
Waiting for the cue to fly away
What a gripping, absolutely ripping
Moment at the Ascot opening day
Pulses rushing
Faces flushing
Heartbeats speed up
I have never been so keyed up
Any second now
They’ll begin to run
Hark, a bell is ringing
They are springing forward
Look! It has begun.
(EVERYONE LOOKS ON IN STONEY SILENCE AS THE HORSES RACE BY)
What a frenzied moment that was
Didn’t they maintain
An exhausting pace?
‘Twas a thrilling, absolutely chilling
Running of the Ascot opening race.
HENRY HIGGINS:
(ENTER. BUMPS INTO A LADY. TIPS HIS HAT IN APOLOGY. OBSERVING ALL THE LADIES FASHIONS)
MRS. HIGGINS:
(SPEAKING TO A LADY) What do you think of the race?
HENRY HIGGINS:
Mother.
MRS. HIGGINS:
Henry. What a disagreeable surprise.
HENRY HIGGINS:
Hello, mother. How nice you are looking.
MRS. HIGGINS:
What are you doing here? You promised never to come to Ascot. Go home at once.
HENRY HIGGINS:
I can’t. I’m here on business.
MRS. HIGGINS:
No Henry, you must. Now, I’m quite serious. You offend all my friends. The moment they meet you, I never see them again. Besides, you aren’t dressed for Ascot.
HENRY HIGGINS:
I changed my shirt. Now, listen, mother. I’ve got a job for you, a phonetics job. I’ve picked up a girl.
MRS. HIGGINS:
Henry. Oh, no, darling not a love affair.
HENRY HIGGINS:
She’s a flower girl. I’m taking her to the annual Embassy Ball. But I want to try her out first.
MRS. HIGGINS:
I beg your pardon?
HENRY HIGGINS:
Well, you know the Embassy Ball.
MRS. HIGGINS:
Ofcourse, I know the Ball but…
HENRY HIGGINS:
So I invited her to your box, today, do you understand?
MRS. HIGGINS:
Common flower girl.
HENRY HIGGINS:
She’ll be alright. I taught her how to speak properly. She has strict instructions as to her behaviour. She is to keep to two subjects. The weather and everybody’s health. “Fine day” and “how do you do?” not to let herself go on things in general. Help her along darling, you’ll be quite safe.
MRS. HIGGINS:
Safe? To talk about one’s health in the middle of a race?
HENRY HIGGINS:
Well, she’s got to talk about something.
MRS. HIGGINS:
Where is the girl now?
HENRY HIGGINS:
She’s being pinned. Some of the clothes we bought her didn’t quite fit.
HENRY HIGGINS:
I told Pickering we should have taken her with us. Thank goodness you’re here.
MRS. HIGGINS:
Mrs. Einsford-Hill.
MRS. EINSFORD-HILL:
Good afternoon, Mrs. Higgins.
MRS. HIGGINS:
You know my son Henry.
MRS. EINSFORD-HILL:
Oh, how do you do?
HENRY HIGGINS:
I’ve seen you somewhere before.
MRS. EINSFORD-HILL:
I don’t know.
HENRY HIGGINS:
Oh, it doesn’t matter. You better sit down. (SHAKING HANDS) Lady Boxington. Where the devil can they be? (SHAKING HANDS) Lord Boxington.
ELIZA, PICKERING:
(ENTER)
MRS. HIGGINS:
Colonel Pickering, you’re just in time for tea.
COLONEL PICKERING:
Thank you Mrs. Higgins. May I introduce Eliza Doolittle?
MRS. HIGGINS:
My dear Miss. Doolittle.
ELIZA:
How kind of you to let me come.
MRS. HIGGINS:
Delighted my dear. Lady Boxington.
ELIZA:
How do you do?
LADY BOXINGTON:
How do you do?
MRS. HIGGINS:
Lord Boxington.
ELIZA:
How do you do?
LORD BOXINGTON:
How do you do?
MRS. HIGGINS:
Mrs. Hill, Miss Dolittle.
ELIZA:
How do you do?
MRS. HILL:
How do you do?
MRS. HIGGINS:
And freddy hill
ELIZA:
How do you do?
FREDDY HILL:
How do you do?
HENRY HIGGINS:
Miss. Doolittle.
ELIZA:
Good afternoon, Professor Higgins. (TAKES A SEAT INDICATED BY HENRY)
FREDDY HILL:
The first race was very exciting, Ms. Doolittle. I’m so sorry that you missed it.
MRS. HILL:
Will it rain do you think?
ELIZA:
The rain in Spain stays mainly in the plain. But in Hartford, Hereford and Hamshire, hurricanes hardly ever happen.
FREDDY HILL:
(LAUGHING) How awfully funny.
ELIZA:
What is wrong in that young man? I bet I got it right.
FREDDY HILL:
Smashing.
MRS. HILL:
Hasn’t it suddenly turned chilly? I do hope we won’t have any unreasonably cold spells. They bring on so much influenza and the whole of our family is susceptible to it.
ELIZA:
My aunt died of influenza.
HENRY HIGGINS:
I don’t know whether there’s time before the next race to place a bet. (GETTING ELIZA TO HER FEET) But come my dear.
ELIZA:
I don’t suppose so.
FREDDY HILL:
I have a bet on number seven. I should be so happy if you would take it. You’ll enjoy the race ever so much more. (OFFERS HER HIS TICKET)
ELIZA:
That’s very kind of you. (TAKING THE TICKET)
FREDDY HILL:
His name is Dover.
COLONEL PICKERING:
Come along my dear.
CROWD:
(RECITING PLACIDLY)
There they are again,
Lining up to run
Now they’re holding steady
They are ready for it
Look, it has begun
(HORSES COME THUNDERING BY)
ELIZA:
Come on. Come on, Dover. Come on. Come on. Come on, Dover. Come on. (HORSES GO BY. ELIZA YELLS IN EXCITEMENT) Come on, Dover! Move your bloomin’ ass!
CROWD:
(GASPS IN HORROR. A LADY STANDING BY FAINTS)
HENRY HIGGINS:
(CLASPS HIS HAND OVER HIS MOUTH IN SHOCK)
COLONEL PICKERING:
Oh, my.
MRS. HIGGINS:
(TO ELIZA) Don’t upset yourself, my dear. Please.
LADY2:
(FAINTS)
HUSBAND LADY2:
Oh, my dear. (CROWD BEGINS TO DISPERSE)
MRS. HIGGINS:
(PRIVATELY WITH HENRY) You’re not serious, Henry. You don’t expect to take her to the Embassy Ball?
HENRY HIGGINS:
Don’t you think she is ready for it?
MRS. HIGGINS:
Dear Henry, she’s ready for a canal barge.
HENRY HIGGINS:
Well, her language may need a little refining, but…
MRS. HIGGINS:
Oh really, Henry. If you cannot see how impossible this whole project is, then you must be absolutely potty about her. I advise you to give it up and not put yourself and this poor girl through more.
HENRY HIGGINS:
Give it up? It’s the most painstaking venture I’ve ever undertaken. Pickering and I are at it from morning till night. It fills our whole lives. Teaching Eliza, talking to Eliza, listening to Eliza, dressing Eliza.
MRS. HIGGINS:
What? You’re a pretty pair of babies playing with your live doll. Ah! Here’s the car. (RECEIVES A KISS FROM HENRY ON THE CHEEK AS HE TOPS HIS HAT TO MOTHER)
COLONEL PICKERING:
It really is, Higgins. It’s inhuman to continue. You realize what you’ve got to teach this poor girl in six weeks? Teach her to walk, talk, to address a duke, a lord, a bishop, an ambassador. It’s absolutely impossible. Higgins, I’m trying to tell you that I want to call off the bet. I know you’re a stubborn man, but so am I. this experiment is over and nothing short of an order from the king could force me to recant. Now, if you’ll excuse me. You understand, Higgins, it’s over. Higgins. (CURTAIN)

SCENE
HENRY HIGGINS HOUSE.
COLONEL PICKERING:
Higgins, if there is any mishap at the Embassy tonight, if Miss. Doolittle suffers any embarrassment whatever, it’ll be on your head alone.
HENRY HIGGINS:
Eliza can do anything.
COLONEL PICKERING:
Suppose she’s discovered? Remember Ascot. Suppose she makes another ghastly mistake?
HENRY HIGGINS:
There will be no horses at the ball, Pickering.
COLONEL PICKERING:
Think how agonizing it would be. Oh, if anything happened tonight, I don’t know what I’d do.
HENRY HIGGINS:
You could always re-join your regiment.
COLONEL PICKERING:
This is no time for flippancy, Higgins. The way you’ve driven the girl the last six weeks has exceeded all bounds of common decency. For God’s sake, stop pacing up and down. Can’t you settle somewhere?
HENRY HIGGINS:
Have some port. It’ll quieten your nerves.
COLONEL PICKERING:
I’m not nervous. Where is it?
HENRY HIGGINS:
On the piano.
BUTLER:
(ENTER) The car is here, sir.
HENRY HIGGINS:
(POURING AND DRINKING PORT) Oh, good. Tell Ms. Doolittle.
BUTLER:
Yes, sir.
COLONEL PICKERING:
Tell Miss. Doolittle indeed. I bet you that damned gown doesn’t fit. I warned you about these French designers. (POURING AND DRINKING MORE PORT) We should’ve gone to a good English shop, everyone would’ve been on our side.  Have a glass of port?
HENRY HIGGINS:
No, thank you.
COLONEL PICKERING:
Are you so sure this girl will retain everything you’ve hammered into her?
HENRY HIGGINS:
Well, we shall see.
COLONEL PICKERING:
Suppose she doesn’t?
HENRY HIGGINS:
I lose my bet.
COLONEL PICKERING:
Higgins, there’s one thing I can’t stand about you, that’s your confounded complacency. At a moment like this with so much at stake, it’s utterly indecent that you don’t need a glass of port. And what about the girl? You act as though she doesn’t matter at all.
HENRY HIGGINS:
Oh, rubbish Pickering. Ofcourse she matters. What do you think I’ve been doing all these months? What could possibly matter more than to take a human being and change her into a different human being by creating a new speech for her? It’s filling up the deepest gap that separates class from class and soul from soul. No, she matters immensely.
ELIZA:
(ENTER)
COLONEL PICKERING:
Miss. Doolittle, you look beautiful.
ELIZA:
(IN A SOFT VOICE) Thank you, Colonel Pickering.
COLONEL PICKERING:
Don’t you think so, Higgins?
HENRY HIGGINS:
Not bad. Not bad at all. (CURTAIN)

SCENE
THE EMBASSY BALL. GUESTS MINGLING.
ANNOUNCER:
Mr. and Mrs. Hugh Deuvile. (ENTER)
Major General and the right honourable Sir James Clarence. (ENTER)
Marquis and Marquise of Glenning. (ENTER)
Lady Suzanna De Longly. (ENTER)
Sir Albert and Lady Derring. (ENTER)
Honourable Mr. Archibald and Lady Catherine Herring. (ENTER)
ZOLTAN KARPATHY:
Maestro. Maestro. (HUGGING HENRY) Don’t you remember me?
HENRY HIGGINS:
No. who the devil are you?
ZOLTAN KARPATHY:
I’m your pupil. Your first, your greatest, your best pupil. I’m Zoltan Karpathy, that marvellous boy.
HENRY HIGGINS:
Oh.
ZOLTAN KARPATHY:
I made your name famous throughout Europe. You teach me phonetics, you cannot forget me.
HENRY HIGGINS:
Why don’t you have your hair cut?
ZOLTAN KARPATHY:
I don’t have your imposing apprearance, your figure your brow. So if I had my haircut, nobody would notice me.
COLONEL PICKERING:
(JOINGING HIGGINS)
HENRY HIGGINS:
Where did you get all these old coins?
ZOLTAN KARPATHY:
These are decorations for language. The Queen of Transylvania is here this evening. I’m indispensable to her at these official international parties. I speak thirty-two languages, I know everyone in Europe. No imposter can escape my detection.
GREEK AMBASSADOR:
Professor Karpathy. (SALUTES LIGHTLY)
ZOLTAN KARPATHY:
(CLICKING HIS HEELS IN ACKNOWLEDGEMENT) The Greek Ambassador. Greek my foot. (PICKERING AND HENRY EXCHANGE GLANCES) He pretends not to know any English but he cannot deceive me. He’s the son of a Yorkshire watchmaker. (PICKERING AND HENRY EXCHANGE GLANCES) He speaks English so villainously that he cannot utter a word without betraying his origin. I help him pretend but I make him pay through his nose. I make them all pay. (PICKERING AND HENRY EXCHANGE GLANCES)
BELL BOY:
Excuse me, sir, you are wanted upstairs. Her excellency asked for you.
ZOLTAN KARPATHY:
Oh, excuse me. (CLICKS HIS HEELS. EXIT)
ELIZA:
(ENTER. TAKES HENRY’S ARM)
ANNOUNCER
Viscount and Viscountess Saxon. (ENTER)
Baron and Baronness of Yorkshire. (ENTER)
Sir Guy and Lady Scot Ackland. (ENTER)
The Count and Countess Demerau. (ENTER)
The Viscount and Viscountess Hillyard. (ENTER)
Mr. and Mrs. Richard Lanser. (ENTER)
Lord and Lady Clanders. (ENTER)
Miss. Eliza Doolittle, Colonel Pickering. (ENTER)
Professor Higgins. (ENTER)
AMBASSADOR:
Good evening, Miss. Doolittle.
ELIZA:
Your excellency.
MRS. AMBASSADOR:
Miss. Doolittle.
ELIZA:
How do you do?
MRS. AMBASSADOR:
Good evening Colonel.
COLONEL PICKERING:
Good evening.
MRS. AMBASSADOR:
Oh, Colonel. What an enchanting young lady you have with you this evening.
COLONEL PICKERING:
Ha-ha, thank you.
MRS. AMBASSADOR:
Well, who is she?
COLONEL PICKERING:
Oh, a cousin of mine. And Higgins. Excuse me.
MRS. AMBASSADOR:
Professor Higgins. Such a faraway look as if she’s always lived in a garden.
HENRY HIGGINS:
So she has, a sort of garden.
MRS. AMBASSADOR:
(DRAWING MR. KARPATHY’S ATTENTION WITH A RAISED FINGER)
ZOLTAN KARPATHY:
(KARPATHY COMES OVER)
MRS. AMBASSADOR:
This young lady with Colonel Pickering. Find out who she is.
ZOLTAN KARPATHY:
With pleasure.
COLONEL PICKERING:
(TO MRS. HIGGINS) Henry must take Eliza home at once. There’s a language expert here. Sort of, you know, sort of impostorologist.
MRS. HIGGINS:
Beg your pardon.
COLONEL PICKERING:
The whole situation is highly explosive.
ZOLTAN KARPATHY:
(GOING OVER TO JOIN ELIZA. HENRY JOINS IN)
HENRY HIGGINS:
Tell me Zoltan, some more about the Greek Ambassador.
ZOLTAN KARPATHY:
Gladly, but first I would love you to present me to this glorious creature.
HENRY HIGGINS:
Does he really come from Yorkshire?
ANNOUNCER:
(CROWD PARTS) Her majesty, the queen of Transylvania and his royal highness, Prince Gregor.
QUEEN OF TRANS:
(ENTER WITH PRINCE GREGOR. WALKS IN GREETING THE LADIES AND PAUSES AT ELIZA) Charming, quite charming.
AMBASSADOR:
Miss. Doolittle ma’am.
QUEEN OF TRANS:
(WALKING ON. GREETS GUESTS)
COLONEL PICKERING:
(THRILLED) We’ll know when we hear her announced.
YOUNG LADIES:
(CROWD AROUND ELIZA) That’s a beautiful ball gown.
QUEEN:
Miss Doolittle, my son would like to dance with you.
PRINCE GREGOR:
(TAKES ELIZA BY THE HAND)
ALL COUPLES:
(BALLROOM DANCING. MUSIC ENDS, PRINCE BOWS AND LEAVES)
HENRY HIGGINS:
Eliza. (ASKS HER FOR A DANCE)
ELIZA, HENRY:
(DANCE)
HENRY HIGGINS:
(DANCES THEM OVER TO KARPATHY AND KARPATHY DANCES WITH ELIZA)
HENRY, PICKERING, MRS. HIGGINS
(ARGUE AND LOOK CONCERNED. ELIZA ENJOYS THE DANCE, SPEAKING BRIEFLY WITH KARPATHY. MUSIC ENDS, KAPATHY GOES OVER TO MRS. AMBASSADOR. WHISPERS SOMETHING TO HER AND THE NEIGHBOUR. WHISPERS SPREAD IN THE ROOM AS ELIZA GOES ON DANCING WITH A NEW PARTNER)
HENRY HIGGINS:
(BURSTS OUT LAUGHING LOUDLY. CURTAIN)

SCENE
HENRY HIGGINS HOUSE.
HENRY HIGGINS:
(LAUGHING LOUDLY)
COLONEL PICKERING:
Absolutely fantastic.
BUTLER, MRS. PEARCE:
(ENTER)
HENRY HIGGINS:
A lot of tomfoolery.
COLONEL PICKERING:
It was an immense achievement.
MRS. PEARCE, FOUR STAFF:
Well Mr. Higgins?
HENRY HIGGINS:
A triumph, Mrs. Pearce. A total triumph.
COLONEL PICKERING:
Higgins, you were superb. Absolutely superb. Tell us the truth now, weren’t you a bit nervous once or twice?
HENRY HIGGINS:
No, not for a second.
ELIZA:
(ENTER)
COLONEL PICKERING:
Not during the whole evening?
HENRY HIGGINS:
I saw we were going to win hands down. I felt like a bear in a cage hanging about with nothing to do.
COLONEL PICKERING:
(LAUGHING) It was an immense achievement.
HENRY HIGGINS:
If I hadn’t backed myself to do it, I’d have given up two months ago.
COLONEL PICKERING:
Absolutely fantastic.
HENRY HIGGINS:
A lot of tomfoolery.
COLONEL PICKERING:
Higgins, I salute you.
HENRY HIGGINS:
Oh, silly people don’t know their own silly business.
COLONEL PICKERING:
(SINGING) Tonight old man, you did it
You did it, you did it.
You said that you would do it
And indeed you did.
I thought that you would rue it
I doubted you’d do it
But now I must admit it
That succeed you did.
You should get a medal
Or be even made a knight
HENRY HIGGINS:
Oh, it was nothing
Really nothing
COLONEL PICKERING:
(SINGING) All alone you hurdled
Every obstacle in sight
HENRY HIGGINS:
Now wait, now wait
Give credit where it’s due
ELIZA:
(FACE LIGHTS UP)
HENRY HIGGINS:
(TO PICKERING) A lot of the glory goes to you.
COLONEL PICKERING:
(SINGING) But you’re the one who did it
Who did it, who did it
As sturdy as Gibraltar
Not a second did you falter
There’s no doubt about it
You did it!
I must have aged a year tonight
At times I thought I’d die of fright
Never was there a momentary lull
HENRY HIGGINS:
(SINGING) Shortly after we came in
I saw at once we’d easily win
And after that, I found it deadly dull
COLONEL PICKERING:
(SINGING) You should have heard
The ‘oohs’  and ‘ahs’
Everyone wondering who she was
HENRY HIGGINS:
You’d think they’d never seen
A lady before
COLONEL PICKERING:
And when the Prince of Transylvania
Asked to meet her
And gave his arm
To lead her to the floor
I said to him you did it.
You did it, you did it
They thought she was ecstatic
And so damned aristocratic
And they never knew that you did it
HENRY HIGGINS:
Well, thank goodness for Zoltan Karpathy. If it hadn’t been for him, I would have died of boredom.
MRS. PEARCE:
Karpathy? That dreadful Hungarian? Was he there?
HENRY HIGGINS:
Yes, he was there, all right and up to his old tricks.
That blackguard
Who uses the science of speech
More to blackmail and swindle
Than teach. He made it
The devilish business of his
To find out who this Miss. Doolittle is (POINTS TO ELIZA)
Everytime we looked around
There he was
That hairy hound from Budapest
Never leaving us alone
Never have I ever known
A ruder pest
Finally I decided it was foolish
Not to let him have his chance with her
So I stepped aside
And let him dance with her
Oozing charm from every pore
He oiled his way around the floor
Every trick that he could play
He used to strip her mask away
And when at last
The dance was done
He glowed as if he knew he’d won
And with a voice too eager
And a smile too broad
He announced to the hostess
That she was a fraud
MRS. PEARCE, STAFF:
No!
HENRY HIGGINS:
Her English is too good he said
That clearly indicates
That she is foreign
Whereas others are instructed
In their native language
English people aren’t
And although she may have studied
With an expert dialectician
And grammarian
I can tell
That she was a born Hungarian!
STAFF, MRS. PEARCE, PICKERING:
(ALL LAUGH)
HENRY HIGGINS:
Not only Hungarian
But of royal blood
(POINTING TO ELIZA) She is a princess (LAUGHS)
Her ‘blood’ he said, “is bluer
Than the Danube is or ever was
Royalty is absolutely written
On her face
She thought that I was taken in
But actually I never was
How could she deceive
Another member of her race?
I know each language on the map,”
Said he
“And she’s Hungarian
As Hungarian as the first Hungarian Rhapsody”
(FALLS INTO A CHAIR LAUGHING)
STAFF:
(ALL CLAPPING)
Bravo, bravo, bravo. (EXIT)
HENRY HIGGINS:
Well, thank god that’s over. Now I can go to bed without dreading tomorrow. (EXHAUSTED)
MRS. PEARCE:
Good night, Mr. Higgins.
HENRY HIGGINS:
Good night, Mrs. Pearce.
COLONEL PICKERING:
I think I’ll turn in too. Good night Higgins. It’s been a great occasion.
HENRY HIGGINS:
Good night, Pickering. Oh, Mrs. Pearce? Oh, damn. I meant to ask her to give me coffee in the morning instead of tea. Leave a little note for her, will you, Eliza? And put out the lights.
ELIZA:
(TURNS OF THE LIGHTS)

SCENE
THEATRE ENTRANCE. PUB DOOR. FLOWER MARKET. SOME WORKERS COAL WORKERS AND VEGETABLE VENDORS.
 ELIZA:
(ENTER)
FLOWER GIRL:
Buy a flower, miss.
ELIZA
Yes please.  (PAYING THE FLOWER GIRL. WALKS AROUND)
VENDOR1:
Good morning, miss. Can I help you?
ELIZA:
Do you mind if I warm my hands?
VENDOR2:
Go right ahead, miss.
OLD MAN:
(PEERING AT ELIZA)
ELIZA:
Yes?
OLD MAN:
Excuse me, miss. For a second I thought you were somebody else.
ELIZA:
(HOPEFULLY) Who?
OLD MAN:
(TIPS HIS HAT) Forgive me, ma’am. Early morning light playing tricks with my eyes.
VENDOR3:
Can I get you a taxi, ma’am? Lady like you shouldn’t be walking alone around London this hour in the morning.
ELIZA:
(SOFTLY) No, thank you. (WALKS TO THE PUB ENTRANCE)
PUB OWNER:
Goodbye. I’ll call you Mr. Doolittle now. Do come again Mr. Doolittle. We value your patronage always.
ALFIE:
(ENTERING THE STREET) Oh, thank you, my good man. Thank you. Here. Come here. Take the missus on a trip to Brighton with my compliments.
PUB OWNER:
Thank you, Mr. Doolittle.
ALFIE:
Charming spot this, Harry. We must visit it more often.
ELIZA:
Father?
ALFIE:
Oh, no. (TO HARRY) You see, Harry, he has no mercy. Sent her down to spy on me in my misery, he did. Me own flesh and blood. (TO ELIZA) Well, I’m miserable all right. You can tell him that straight.
ELIZA:
What are you talking about? What you dressed up for?
ALFIE:
As if you didn’t know. Go on back to that Wimpole street devil. Tell him what he’s done to me.
ELIZA:
What’s he done to you?
ALFIE:
Ruined me, that’s all. Tied me up and delivered me into the hands of middle-class morality. Don’t you defend him. Was it him or was it not him wrote to an old American blighter named Wallingford who was giving 5 millions to fund moral reform societies to tell him the most original moralist in England was Mr. Alfred P. Doolittle, a common dustman.
ELIZA:
Sounds like one of his jokes.
ALFIE:
You may call it a joke. It’s put the lid on me proper. The old bloke died and left me four thousand pounds a year in his blooming will. Who asked him to make a gentleman out of me? I was happy, I was free. I touched pretty nigh everyone for money when I wanted it, same as I touched him. Now I’m tied neck and heels and everybody touches me. A year ago, I hadn’t a relation in the world except one or two who wouldn’t speak to me. Now I’ve fifty. Not a decent week’s wages among the lot of them. Ooh, I have to live for others now, not for myself. Middle-class morality.
CRONY1:
Come on, Alfie. Another couple of hours, we have to be at the church.
ELIZA:
Church?
ALFIE:
Yeah, church. The deepest cut of all. Well, why do you think I’m dressed up like a ruddy pallbearer? Your stepmother wants to marry me. Now I’m respectable, she wants to be respectable.
ELIZA:
Well, if that’s the way you feel about it, why don’t you give the money back?
ALFIE:
That’s the tragedy of it Eliza. It’s easy to say chuck it, but I haven’t the nerve. We’re all intimidated. That’s what we are, intimidated. Bought up. Yeah. That’s what I am. That’s what your precious professor’s brought me to.
ELIZA:
Not my precious professor.
ALFIE:
Oh, sent you back, has he? First he shoves me in the middle-class, then he chucks you out for me to support you. That’s all part of his plan. (WINKING AT ELIZA) But you double-cross him. Don’t you come back home to me. Don’t you take tuppence from me. You stand on your own two feet. You’re a lady now and you can do it. Yeah, that’s right Eliza. You’re a lady now. Here, Eliza, would you like to come and see me turned off this morning? Huh? St. George’s Hanover Square, ten o’clock. I wouldn’t advise it but you’re welcome.
ELIZA:
No, thank you, dad.
ALFIE:
No. Are you all finished here now, Eliza?
ELIZA:
Yes, dad. I’m all finished here.
FREDDY:
Come along, Alfie.
ALFIE:
How much time have I got left?
CRONY1, CRONY2:
(SINGING) There’s just a few more hours
That’s all the time you’ve got
A few more hours
Before they tie the knot
ALFIE:
There’s drinks and girls all over London and I gotta track’em down in just a few more hours.
(ENTERING THE PUB) Set’em up for me darling. (CURTAIN)

SCENE
THE PUB.
ALFIE:
(SINGING) I’m getting married in the mornin’
Ding dong
The bells are going to chime
Pull out the stopper
Let’s have a whopper
But get me to the church on time
ALL:
(CLINKING GLASSES)
ALFIE:
I gotta be there in the mornin’
Spruced up and looking in my prime
Girls, come and kiss me
Show how you’ll miss me
But get me to the church on time.
If I am dancin’, roll up the floor
If I am whistling
(SMACKS BAR MAID’S BOTTOM)
Me out the door
I’m getting married in the mornin’
Ding dong
The bells are going to chime
Kick up a rumpus
But don’t lose the compass
And get me to the church
ALL:
(DANCING ON TABLES) Get him to the church
ALFIE:
For God’s sake
Get me to the church on time
ALL:
I’m getting married in the mornin’
Ding dong
The bells are going to chime
Some bloke who’s able
Lift up the table
But get me to the church on time
ALFIE:
If I am flyin’
Then shoot me down
If I am wooin’
Get her out of town
ALL:
For I’m getting married in the mornin’
Ding dong
The bells are going to chime
Feather and tar me
Call out the army
But get me to the church on time,
Oh, for God’s sake
Get me to the church on time.
FREDDY:
It’s a nice morning. Good morning Alfie. Three cheers.
ALL:
(TIRED. SING SOFTLY) Starlight is reelin’ home to bed now
Mornin’ is smearin’ up the sky
London is wakin’
Daylight is breakin’
Good luck, old chum
Good health
Goodbye
ALFIE:
(SHAKING HIS HEAD. CURTAINS)

SCENE
HENRY HIGGINS HOUSE.
HENRY HIGGINS:
(STORMING INTO THE ROOM FOLLOWED BY MRS. PEARCE) Pickering. Pickering. Didn’t even say where to send her clothes?
MRS. PEARCE:
I told you, sir. She took them all with her.
HENRY HIGGINS:
Pickering.
COLONEL PICKERING:
(ENTER) What’s the matter?
HENRY HIGGINS:
Here’s a confounded thing. Eliza’s bolted.
COLONEL PICKERING:
Bolted?
HENRY HIGGINS:
Bolted.
MRS. PEARCE;
Last night Mrs. Pearce let her go without telling me a thing about it.
COLONEL PICKERING:
Well, I’m dashed.
HENRY HIGGINS:
What am I to do? I got tea this morning instead of coffee. I don’t know where anything is. I don’t know what my appointments are.
MRS. PEARCE;
Eliza would know.
HENRY HIGGINS:
Ofcourse she’d know but she’s gone.
MRS. PEARCE:
Did either of you gentlemen frighten her last night?
COLONEL PICKERING:
Last night we hardly said a word to her. You were there. (TO HENRY) Did you bully her after I went to bed?
HENRY HIGGINS:
The other way around. She threw her slippers at me. I never gave her the slightest provocation. The slippers came, bang at my head before I uttered a word.
COLONEL PICKERING:
Well, I’m dashed. I don’t understand.
HENRY HIGGINS:
Oh, Pickering, for God’s sake, stop being dashed and do something.
COLONEL PICKERING:
What?
HENRY HIGGINS:
Well, phone the police. What are they there for in heaven’s name?
MRS. PEARCE:
Mr. Higgins, you can’t give Eliza’s name to the police as if she were a thief or a lost umbrella.
HENRY HIGGINS:
Why not? I want to find the girl. She belongs to me. I paid five pounds for her. What, in all of heaven, can have prompted her to go? After such a triumph at the ball?
COLONEL PICKERING:
(ON THE PHONE) Hello, Scotland yard please.
MRS. PEARCE:
(BRINGING IN SOME COFFEE) Oh I do hope you find her Colonel Pickering, Mr. Higgins will miss her.
COLONEL PICKERING:
Blast Mr. Higgins. I’ll miss her. (CURTAIN)
               
SCENE
MRS. HIGGINS CONSERVATORY.
MRS. HIGGINS:
Do you mean to say that after you’d done this wonderful thing for them without making a single mistake, they just sat there, never said a word to you? Never petted you, or admired you, or told you how splendid you’d been?
ELIZA:
Not a word. They just sat there congratulating each other on how marvellous they’d been. The next moment, how glad they were it was all over and what a bore it had all been.
MRS. HIGGINS:
This is simply appalling. I would not have thrown my slippers at him, I would’ve thrown the fire irons.
HENRY HIGGINS:
(VOICE HEARD) Oh, is my mother in?
ELIZA:
What’s that?
MRS. HIGGINS:
Henry. I knew it wouldn’t be too long. Now, remember, you not only danced with a prince last night, you behaved like a princess. (EXIT)
HENRY HIGGINS:
(ENTER) Mother the most confounded thing. Do you..? (SEES ELIZA) You?
ELIZA:
Good afternoon, professor Higgins. Are you quite well?
HENRY HIGGINS:
Am I…?
ELIZA:
Ofcourse you are. You are never ill. Would you care for some tea?
HENRY HIGGINS:
Don’t you dare try that game on me, I taught it to you. Now, get up and come home and stop being a fool. You’ve caused me enough trouble for one morning.
MRS. HIGGINS:
Very nicely put indeed, Henry. No woman could resist such an invitation.
HENRY HIGGINS:
How did this baggage get here in the first place?
MRS. HIGGINS:
Eliza came to see me this morning and I was delighted to have her. If you don’t promise to behave, I must ask you to leave.
HENRY HIGGINS:
You mean to say I’m to put on my Sunday manners with this thing that I created out of squashed cabbage leaves of Covent Garden?
MRS. HIGGINS:
That’s precisely what I mean. However did you learn good manners with my son around?
ELIZA:
It was very difficult. I should never have known how ladies and gentlemen behave if it hadn’t been for Colonel Pickering. He always showed me what he felt and thought about me as if I was something better than a common flower girl. You see Mrs. Higgins, apart from things one can pick up, the difference between a lady and a flower girl is not how she behaves but how she is treated. I shall always be a flower girl to Professor Higgins because he always treats me as a flower girl and always will.
MRS. HIGGINS:
Henry don’t grind your teeth.
MAID:
(ENTER) The bishop is here, madam. Shall I show him into the garden?
MRS. HIGGINS:
The Bishop and the professor? Good heavens, no. I shall be excommunicated. I’ll see him in the library.
MAID:
(EXIT)
MRS. HIGGINS:
Eliza, if my son starts breaking things, I give you full permission to have him evicted. Henry dear, I suggest you stick to two subjects; the weather and your health. (EXIT)
HENRY HIGGINS:
(COMES OVER TO THE TABLE AND POURS A CUP OF TEA) Well, you’ve had a bit of your own back, as you call it. Have you had enough and are you going to be reasonable or do you want more?
ELIZA:
You want me back to pick up your slippers and put up with your tempers and fetch and carry for you.
HENRY HIGGINS:
I didn’t say I wanted you back at all.
ELIZA:
Oh, indeed? Then what are we talking about?
HENRY HIGGINS:
Well, about you, not about me. If you come back, you’ll be treated as you’ve always been treated. I can’t change my nature. I don’t intend to change my manners. My manners are exactly the same as Colonel Pickering.
ELIZA:
That’s not true. He treats a flower girl as if she were a duchess.
HENRY HIGGINS:
Well, I treat the duchess as if she were a flower girl.
ELIZA:
Oh I see, the same to everybody.
HENRY HIGGINS:
Just so. You see, the great secret, Eliza, is not a question of good manners or bad manners or any particular sort of manners, but having the same manner for all human souls. The question is not whether I treat you rudely, whether you’ve ever heard me treat anyone else better.
ELIZA;
But I can get along without you.
HENRY HIGGINS:
I know you can. I told you you could. You’ve never wondered, I suppose whether I could get along without you. So I can, without you or any soul on earth. I shall miss you, Eliza.
ELIZA:
Well, you have my voice on your gramophone. When you feel lonely without me, you can turn it on. It has no feelings to hurt. (CURTAIN)

SCENE
HENRY HIGGINS HOUSE. ALL STAFF GATHER. PICKERING. LISTENING.
ELIZA:
(VOICE ON GRAMAPHONE) Oh, we are proud. He ain’t above giving lessons, not him. I heard him say so. Well, I ain’t come here to ask for any compliment, and if my money is not good enough I can go elsewhere. (HENRY’S VOICE) Good enough for what? Good enough for you. Now you know, don’t you? I’m come to have lessons, I am, and to pay for them too, make no mistake. (PICKERING’S VOICE) What is it you want, my girl. I want to be a lady in a flower shop instead of selling at the corner of Tottenham Court Road. But they won’t take me unless I can talk more genteel. He said he could teach me. Well here I am.
ELIZA:
(ENTER)
ELIZA:
(VOICE ON GRAMAPHONE) Ready to pay, not asking for any favour. And he treats me as if I was dirt. I know what lessons cost as well as you do and I’m ready to pay. I won’t give more than a schilling. Take it or leave it. (HENRY’S VOICE) It’s almost irresistible. She’s so deliciously low. So horribly dirty. I’ll take it. I’ll make a duchess of this draggle-tailed guttersnipe. (TURNS OFF THE GRAMAPHONE)
I washed my face and hands before I come, I did.
ALL:
(ERRUPT IN SHUTS OF JOY)
HENRY HIGGINS:
Eliza? Where the devil are my slippers?
ALL:
(LAUGH)

7 comments:

  1. entirely.. refer the movie production.. i have simply transcribed that..

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  2. small correction ! it has been adapted to allow children to succeed at scenes on stage and as a quick reference point to help them along to a great production.

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