Happy Eliza Doolittle Day!

For fans of My Fair Lady, the 20th May is celebrated as Eliza Doolittle Day!

When Cockney flower shop girl Eliza Doolittle takes on the condescending Henry Higgins in the song, 'Just You Wait', she sings:

One day I'll be famous! I'll be proper and prim
Go to St. James so often I will call it St. Jim!
One evening the king will say:
'Oh, Liza, old thing,
I want all of England your praises to sing.
Next week on the twentieth of May
I proclaim Eliza Doolittle Day!'

My Fair Lady is a musical based upon George Bernard Shaw's Pygmalion and with book and lyrics by Alan Jay Lerner and music by Frederick Loewe. The story concerns Eliza Doolittle, a Cockney flower girl who takes speech lessons from professor Henry Higgins, a phoneticist, so that she may pass as a well-born lady. The musical's 1956 Broadway production was a hit, setting what was then the record for the longest run of any major musical theatre production in history. It was followed by a hit London production, a popular film version starring Audrey Hepburn, and numerous revivals.

Take a listen to 'Just You Wait' from My Fair Lady to celebrate Eliza's day!