Pygmalion (Classic Radio Theatre) recap

London flower seller Eliza Doolittle asks phonetics expert Henry Higgins to improve her speech so she can seek better work. Higgins accepts Colonel Pickering's wager that he can present her as a lady, subjecting her to intensive training while giving little thought to what will happen afterward. Eliza learns polished pronunciation and manners, first startling guests at Mrs Higgins's home and later passing successfully at an embassy reception. Higgins and Pickering celebrate their achievement without acknowledging her labor, prompting Eliza to leave. Her father Alfred, meanwhile, has unwillingly acquired money and social obligations after Higgins recommended him to a wealthy reformer. Eliza returns to insist that Higgins's success does not give him ownership of her. She credits Pickering's respect with changing her sense of herself, declares that she can work and may marry Freddy, and leaves for her father's wedding rather than submit to Higgins's casual commands. Higgins admires her new independence but does not secure the romantic ending he assumes he can command.

During a downpour outside Covent Garden, a young flower seller named Eliza Doolittle encounters Henry Higgins, who has been recording her accent. Bystanders initially suspect him of informing on her, but he is a scholar of phonetics who can place speakers by their voices. Another man under the portico proves to be Colonel Pickering, a fellow student of speech who has just arrived from India hoping to meet Higgins. Higgins boasts that with training he could make Eliza speak well enough to pass among the wealthy. His casual display earns Eliza an unusually generous handful of coins. Higgins and Pickering leave together, while Eliza, suddenly able to afford a cab, begins to imagine that speech might offer a route beyond selling flowers in the street.

Eliza arrives at Higgins's house and offers to pay for lessons so she can work in a flower shop. Higgins treats the proposal as an entertaining experiment. Pickering challenges him to make good on his boast and offers to cover the costs if Eliza can pass as a lady. Despite Mrs Pearce's warnings that they must consider Eliza's welfare and future, Higgins begins the transformation and installs her in the house. Eliza's father Alfred Doolittle then appears, ostensibly concerned about her but chiefly interested in profiting from the arrangement. His candid rejection of conventional morality amuses Higgins, who gives him five pounds. Eliza's old clothes are removed, and the household commits to an intensive course of pronunciation, dress, and manners whose consequences Higgins still regards as someone else's problem.

After months of work, Higgins tests Eliza at his mother's home during a visit from Mrs Eynsford Hill, Clara, and Freddy. Eliza's pronunciation is now impeccable, but the approved topics of weather and health lead into cheerful accounts of drink, death, and family scandal from her old life. Higgins persuades the guests that her expressions are a new fashion, and Freddy is captivated by her. Once the visitors leave, Mrs Higgins tells Higgins and Pickering that they have treated a human being like a project. Eliza imitates a lady convincingly on the surface, but the men have neither given her an appropriate place in society nor planned what she can do when their experiment ends.

Eliza succeeds at the embassy reception so completely that the language expert Neppomuck decides she must be foreign royalty. Back at Higgins's home, Higgins and Pickering congratulate each other and express relief that the long effort is over, scarcely noticing Eliza. Their indifference makes clear that the triumph they claim has left her without a home, profession, or accepted identity. When Higgins asks for his slippers, Eliza throws them at him and demands to know what is to become of her. He dismisses her distress and suggests marriage as one possible solution. Eliza returns the jewelry she wore, which he takes as an insult, and he leaves angrily. She then quits the house. Freddy, who has been lingering outside in devotion to her, meets her departure, and the two go off together.

Higgins and Pickering search for Eliza and find her at Mrs Higgins's home. Alfred Doolittle also arrives, transformed against his wishes: Higgins once recommended him to an American millionaire interested in moral reform, and the resulting inheritance has forced Doolittle into the respectable middle class. He is about to marry Eliza's stepmother. Eliza calmly thanks Pickering for always treating her as a lady, explaining that his respect changed how she understood herself. She refuses to return as Higgins's dependent and tells him she can marry Freddy and earn money by teaching phonetics. Higgins argues that he treats everyone alike and now prefers the independent Eliza to his former pupil, yet still presumes she will manage his errands. Eliza refuses and leaves with Mrs Higgins for her father's wedding. Higgins laughs at the idea of her marrying Freddy, but Eliza has departed on her own terms, with her future no longer his experiment to direct.

Eliza returns to Mrs Higgins's home after leaving Wimpole Street and confronts Higgins on more equal terms. She explains that Pickering's unfailing courtesy, rather than Higgins's drills alone, taught her to think of herself as a lady. Now able to support herself, she refuses to remain a dependent object in Higgins's household and says she may marry Freddy and teach phonetics. Higgins finally recognizes the independence and spirit he values in her, but he still assumes she will resume organizing his life and sends her out with errands. Eliza rejects the instruction and leaves for her father's wedding with Mrs Higgins. Higgins laughs at her declared plan to marry Freddy. The play closes without a romantic union between Higgins and Eliza: she has asserted the right to choose her own future, while he remains amused, admiring, and largely unchanged.