It is late on a cold March night outside the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden. Eliza Doolittle, a Cockney flower seller with a Lisson Grove accent, tries unsuccessfully to sell violets to Freddy Eynsford-Hill. Standing nearby is Professor Henry Higgins, a phonetician, making notes on Eliza's dialect. "In six months I could pass her off as a Duchess at an embassy ball," he exclaims to Colonel Pickering who, it turns out, has come all the way from India to meet him.

Next morning, to Higgins' surprise, Eliza arrives on his doorstep and asks to be given English lessons. "I want to be a lady in a flower shop 'stead of selling at the corner of Tottenham Court Road," she says. Higgins accepts the challenge. Some days later, Alfred P Doolittle, Eliza's dustman father, calls at the Wimpole Street house and demands some financial compensation for the loss of his daughter.

Eliza is a slow pupil at first, but eventually she is proclaimed conqueror in 'The Rain in Spain'. Higgins immediately decides to "test her in public" at the Ascot Races. All goes well as Eliza recites her set pieces about the weather until her enthusiasm for the horse she has backed carries her into a bout of vulgar cheering. This outburst does not deter Freddy Eynsford-Hill from falling helplessly in love with the 'new' Eliza. Six weeks later, Higgins presents Eliza at the Embassy ball and succeeds in deceiving the Hungarian phonetics expert, Professor Zoltan Karpathy, into declaring that Eliza is a Hungarian princess!

Higgins and Pickering congratulate themselves and forget Eliza's contribution to their success. Eliza explodes and walks out on them, only to bump into Freddy, who bears the brunt of her temper. Wandering around the town, Eliza comes across her father, drunk, on the way to his wedding.

Higgins and Eliza meet again at Mrs Higgins' apartment. Eliza is there for advice and Higgins there because he is hurt by Eliza's absence. An argument develops and Eliza storms out. Within moments, Higgins recognises that Eliza is now entirely independent and admirable in her own right. It will be difficult to get on without her.

Back at Wimpole Street, Higgins sinks into his chair prepared to face a bleak and lonely future...

The scene is London in 1912.

Sponsors: Hair Moda by Donato, Wolverton; Browns Newsagent, Wolverton; A.G. & K. Barlow, Stony Stratford; Car Spares, Stony Stratford; Fur and Purr, Stony Stratford; Chappells of Bond Street, Central Milton Keynes

See also 'My Fair Lady' in 1977.

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