Pygmalion (Classic Radio Theatre) characters

Appears from the start

A poor young flower seller with a strong London accent who shelters from the rain outside Covent Garden. Alert to insult and fiercely protective of her respectability, she is alarmed when Higgins writes down her speech and assumes he is a policeman. His claim that pronunciation can change a person's prospects gives her an idea for improving her own life.

Appears from the start

A celebrated specialist in phonetics who can identify where people grew up from small differences in their speech. Brilliant, wealthy, and absorbed in his subject, he treats the people around him with blunt impatience and regards the flower girl's accent as a technical problem he could readily solve.

Appears from the start

A courteous retired colonel who has studied Indian dialects and has come to London hoping to meet Higgins. Unlike Higgins, he consistently addresses Eliza with consideration. Their shared scholarly interest quickly makes him Higgins's houseguest and collaborator.

Appears from the start

A genteel widow caught in the Covent Garden rain with her two adult children. Short of money but concerned with appearances, she is embarrassed by Freddy's clumsiness and puzzled when Eliza seems to know his name.

Appears from the start

Mrs Eynsford Hill's good-natured son, sent repeatedly into the rain to find a cab. His collision with Eliza scatters her flowers and makes him the immediate object of her complaints.

Appears from the start

Freddy's sister, an observant young woman whose fashionable manner is constrained by her family's reduced circumstances. She is intrigued by Higgins's demonstrations and by the unfamiliar social mixture gathered under the portico.

First appears in chapter 2

Higgins's capable housekeeper, accustomed to restraining his careless behavior. When Eliza arrives for lessons, Mrs Pearce insists that practical matters such as the girl's clothes, treatment, and future cannot be ignored merely because Higgins finds the experiment interesting.

First appears in chapter 2

Eliza's father, a dustman who arrives at Higgins's house after hearing that his daughter is there. Quick-witted and cheerfully unconventional, he rejects conventional respectability and presents his neglect of ordinary duties as an honest alternative to middle-class morality.

First appears in chapter 3

Higgins's composed and perceptive mother, at whose home he proposes to test Eliza in polite company. She understands at once that correct pronunciation alone cannot prepare Eliza for a new social position and questions what will become of the young woman after the experiment.

First appears in chapter 4

A former pupil of Higgins who has made a fashionable career from his knowledge of languages. At the embassy reception he confidently analyzes Eliza's speech and origins, becoming an unknowing part of the test of Higgins's teaching.