Kirkcaldy Amateur Operatic Society (KAOS) are 99 years old this year and are already planning for their centenary in 2007, however in true show business style, the show must go on this year and what a show!

Their selection for this years extravaganza is the Lerner and Loewe classic My Fair Lady, always a sure fire winner, and even more so when performed with the style and grace that it is presented this week in the virtual sell out run at the Adam Smith Theatre Kirkcaldy.

There surely cannot be anyone out there in reader land who does not know the story of flower seller Eliza Doolittle who becomes the subject of a bet between Professor Henry Higgins and Colonel Pickering that the former could pass of poor Eliza at court in less than six months and the story of this conversion forms the basic synopsis of the plot.

The role of Eliza is taken by Kay Petrie, and inspired casting together with her undoubted musical theatre talent, Ms Petrie turns in one of the most convincing interpretations of the role I have witnessed. Higgins, Peter Easson, is played very like the Rex Harrison portrayal, but again it worked really well, and the relationship between the pair is enthralling throughout. Harry Gibson as Pickering, Michael McFarlane as Freddy, Eliza’s would-be suitor, her father Alfred Doolittle, Gerry Duffy, are just three of the cast of thousands, well at times it seemed like it, I certainly counted over forty on stage on occasions, who stood out with their performances.

The show is blessed with some wonderful songs, and the company with some equally good voices, the direction and choreography skillfully fitting and enabled the huge ensemble to  move, dance and perform defying the number of bodies on stage at times. The set, especially that of Higgins’s living room, was extremely well designed and built, and together with excellent use of lighting gave this amateur company a very professional feel.

A very talented band under the direction of MD Tom Wright played the musical numbers with style, loud enough, but not too loud, bravo folks.

In finishing I would like to highlight two areas I haven’t really touched on yet, firstly costumes. It cannot be easy to produce the quality and especially quantity that were required for this production, but when the curtains opened for the ‘Ascot Gavotte’ they actually drew a round of applause, something I’d not seen before anywhere, so well done the wardrobe department, and the ‘bows’. What a splendid way of finishing off the night’s entertainment.

  If you can get hold of a ticket for this show I would thoroughly recommend you try, and if not, get your name on a list for their centenary production next year, I know I will.