| | BY CARLA POWER | | | | between the incomes of the | | | | necessarily make you middle |
| | | | | | richest and the poorest has | | | | class. But while the old codes |
| 1 | | IS "MY FAIR LADY" | | | |  | | | | are fraying, the obsession with |
| | a period piece? At | | | | | | | one's standing sticks: when the |
| | first glance the Lerner and | | | | | | | BBC added a "Check your |
| | Loewe musical, now enjoying | | | | | | | class" link to its Web site last |
| | a sumptuous revival at | | | | | | | month, thousands of people |
| | Britain's National Theatre, | | | | | | | jammed onto the site to do just |
| | seems anachronistic. Based on | | | | | | | that. |
| | George Bernard Shaw's 1913 | | | | | 6 | | Thanks in large part to the |
| | play "Pygmalion", the musical | | | | | | | media, a new sort of |
| | chronicles how, through the | | | | | | | meritocracy has replaced the |
| | power of elocution, Eliza | | | | | | | aristocracy. For the better part |
| | Doolittle is transformed from | | | | | | | of the last year, the country |
| | a common cockney girl to a | | | | | | | has been gripped by "Big |
| | society lady¹. The play's | | | | | | | Brother," the TV show in |
| | obsession with niceties like | | | | again begun to widen in the | | | | which ordinary Britons are |
| | rounded vowels seems antique | | | | last five years. A 1999 study by | | | | transformed into celebrities by |
| | in a Britain where aristocrats | | | | the London School of | | | | living together on camera and |
| | like Guy Ritchie (better | | | | Economics found that child | | | | periodically voting to evict one |
| | known as the man who | | | | poverty has increased | | | | of their housemates. Last |
| | married Madonna) mask their | | | | dramatically since the 1960s: as | | | | month the corollary show was |
| | privileged roots by affecting | | | | many as one in three children | | | | aired: on "Celebrity Big |
| | gangsta slang. | | | | live in poverty, compared with | | | | Brother", a range of B-list TV |
| 2 | | Yet Trevor Nunn's marvel- | | | | one in 10 in 1968. | | | | personalities are confined to a |
| | ous new staging, which | | 4 | | But in so many other ways | | | | house and humiliatingly |
| | opened in London last month, | | | | Britain has been transformed. | | | | evicted just like ordinary folks. |
| | makes the play seem fresh. | | | | Status consciousness has | | | | In the whirl of the modern |
| | Earlier Elizas like Julie | | | | replaced class rivalry as | | | | British status system, Eliza |
| | Andrews and Audrey | | | | society's driving force. Titles | | | | wouldn't have had to bother |
| | Hepburn had to disguise their | | | | no longer dazzle: stale | | | | with all those elocution |
| | cut-glass accents during the | | | | chronicles of blue bloods are | | | | lessons; she'd simply have |
| | first few scenes, putting on | | | | strictly for the blue-rinse set. | | | | auditioned for reality TV. |
| | faux cockney during Eliza's | | | | The tabloid industry thrives on | | 7 | | "My Fair Lady" is |
| | "squashed cabbage" phase. | | | | tales of aristocrats in rehab | | | | fundamentally a play about |
| | But Nunn cast Martine | | | | and royals on topless beaches. | | | | transformation and, as such, is |
| | McCutcheon, a British soap- | | | | For the young, people like | | | | perfectly in tune with the |
| | opera and pop star - and a | | | | singer Posh Spice and her | | | | mores of Tony Blair's Britain. |
| | genuine working-class actress - | | | | husband footballer David | | | | George Bernard Shaw's faith |
| | as his Eliza. Orchestrator | | | | Beckham are the new royalty, | | | | in the make-over and the fresh |
| | William David Brohn has | | | | envied not for their breeding | | | | start is spookily similar to |
| | trimmed the swooping strings | | | | but for their money and | | | | Blair's vision of society. Blair |
| | from Frederick Loewe's score; | | | | celebrity. The Duchess of | | | | may be a Third Way politician, |
| | the result is a bolder, funkier | | | | York was reduced to doing | | | | and Shaw may have been a |
| | sound, even for numbers like | | | | Weight Watchers ads to keep | | | | socialist, but they share a |
| | Henry Higgins's misogynist | | | | her in the style to which she's | | | | belief that the hardworking |
| | rant, "I'm an Ordinary Man". | | | | grown accustomed. | | | | individual can trium ver |
| | Choreographer Matthew | | 5 | | What changed Britain? | | | | hidebound social systems. At |
| | Bourne makes the toffs paw | | | | Compulsory education, immi- | | | | the end of both Shaw's play |
| | and whinny like horses at | | | | gration and a competitive job | | | | and the musical, there is a |
| | Ascot, and rescues the | | | | market have helped break | | | | sense that Henry Higgins has |
| | cockney partying number - | | | | down class divides. In 1926 the | | | | created a misfit: a woman who |
| | "With a Little Bit of Luck" - | | | | BBC set up a committee to | | | | can't go back to her working- |
| | from cheeky cuteness by | | | | standardize an "educated" | | | | class roots, but is too |
| | rendering it as a raucous | | | | English for broadcasters; today | | | | independent to don the |
| | garbage-can tap dance. | | | | the deregulation of the | | | | society-lady straitjacket. Pity |
| 3 | | In some ways Britain hasn't | | | | airwaves has brought a host of | | | | she wasn't born in Blair's |
| | changed much since the era | | | | accents - and languages - to | | | | Britain: she would have fit |
| | depicted by Shaw. In economic | | | | British ears. The demise of | | | | right in. |
| | terms, the Victorian story of | | | | heavy industry in favor of a | | | | |
| | Britain as not one but two | | | | service industry means that | | | | Newsweek |
| | nations - one rich, one poor - | | | | working behind a desk instead | | |
| | rings truer than ever. The gap | | | | of at the coalface doesn't | | |
