Younger readers might think of Eliza Doolittle as the squeaky clean pop star who sang on Disclosure’s top ten hit You & Me.

But a hundred years ago the name was shorthand for emancipation and class, a flower girl become lady in George Bernard Shaw’s Pygmalion, which later inspired Julie Andrews in My Fair Lady.

Rachel Barry’s vision of the illegitimate and mouthy dreamer is best when the squawks of irate Cockney sparrow have disappeared and she’s testing the skills taught to her by Professor Henry Higgins.

When she tries to convince good society she’s not who she seems, that she can turn her accent but not her words, no one knows quite where to look.

Alistair McGowan as the haughty and pompous prof, all wobbling eyebrows, wicked looks and well-timed lines, surprises. It’s a knockabout role, yes, but he fits: from man about town to mummy’s little boy and confused romantic.

Jamie Foreman’s hammy Alfred Doolittle, who rises, regretfully, from his position in the “undeserving poor”, is Del Boy meets Grant Mitchell. He keeps the laughs coming and reminds us that, even robbed of its contemporary bite, Pygmalion has much to say and is still great fun.