Audrey Hepburn

This Week in London – The first Lady Mayor’s Show; Joseph Wright ‘of Derby’ at the National Portrait Gallery; and, Audrey Hepburn’s Blue Plaque…

by exploringlondon
The State Coach at the Royal Courts of Justice in the 2013 Lord Mayor’s Show. PICTURE: S Pinter/iStockphoto.

• The Lord Mayor’s Show – or this year, for the first time in its 800 year history, the Lady Mayor’s Show – takes place on Saturday as Dame Susan Langley is celebrated as the City of London’s 697th Lord Mayor of London. Langley, who takes office at Guildhall on Friday in the ancient ‘Silent Ceremony’, is the third woman to hold the role and the first to adopt the title “Lady Mayor”. The more than three mile-long procession, which kicks off at 11am, features around 7,000 participants, 200 horses and more than 50 decorated floats and travels from the Mansion House, the official mayoral residence, through the City to the Royal Courts of Justice, via St Paul’s Cathedral, before returning. The centrepiece as always is the State Coach carrying the Lady Mayor as she fulfills the dual purpose of showing herself to residents and swearing allegiance to the crown. For more – including details of the procession’s route, head to https://lordmayorsshow.london/.

• The first exhibition dedicated to the work of 18th century artist Joseph Wright ‘of Derby’ opens at The National Gallery tomorrow. Wright of Derby: From the Shadows focuses on his career between 1765 and 1773 when he created his candlelight series. On show are a number of works from this series including Three Persons Viewing the Gladiator by Candlelight (1765), A Philosopher giving that Lecture on the Orrery in which a lamp is put in place of the Sun (1766), and the gallery’s own An Experiment on a Bird in the Air Pump (1768). Mezzotint prints of Wright’s works – key to the establishment of his international reputation – will also be on display. The exhibition, in the Sunley Room, runs until 10th May. Admission charge applies. For more, see www.nationalgallery.org.uk/exhibitions/wright-of-derby-from-the-shadows.

• Hollywood icon Audrey Hepburn has been honoured with an English Heritage Blue Plaque on her former home in Mayfair. The plaque at 65 South Audley Street was where Hepburn lived in a flat with her mother between 1949 to 1954 as she launched her career as an actor. It was from here that she travelled to the West End to perform in chorus lines, appeared in British films such as 1951’s The Lavender Hill Mob and while living here that she was cast as the lead in Gigi on Broadway – a key stepping stone towards her breakthrough performance in 1953’s Roman Holiday. Hepburn was born in Brussels but had strong ties to London, training at the Ballet Rambert and working as a dancer and model before moving on to acting. Of course, as well as Roman Holiday, Hepburn performed notable roles Sabrina, Funny Face, Breakfast at Tiffany’s, My Fair Lady, and Charade. She later dedicated herself to humanitarian work, serving as a UNICEF Goodwill Ambassador, and was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom shortly before her death in 1993. For more on English Heritage Blue Plaques, see www.english-heritage.org.uk/visit/blue-plaques/.

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10 (more) fictional character addresses in London – 2. 27a Wimpole Street…

by exploringlondon

wimpole-streetThis notable Marylebone Street contains the home of Henry Higgins, the professor of phonetics who attempts to help Cockney flower girl Eliza Doolittle pass for a duchess as part of a bet in George Bernard Shaw’s play Pygmalion.

Written in 1912, the play which gives Professor Higgins’ address as 27A Wimpole Street was in 1964 adapted into the film, My Fair Lady, starring Audrey Hepburn and Rex Harrison.

The choice of Wimpole Street as the address of Professor Higgins – both for his home and “laboratory” – was apparently not co-incidental. Articles in The Telegraph and Daily Mail last year talk about the fact that 27a lies not far from a grand Georgian (Grade II-listed) townhouse (then on the market for £15 million) in Upper Wimpole Street which was formerly the home of a Professor Horace Hayman Wilson, a professor of Sanskrit at Oxford University in the early 19th century.

The articles say that while the “real-life academic ‘model'” for Higgins was Henry Sweet – an early 20th century Oxford professor of phonetics who is named in the preface to the play, the basis for Professor Higgins’ rather grand lifestyle was that of Professor Wilson.

They also suggest that the connection between Professor Higgins and Professor Wilson makes sense considering one of the mysteries of Pygmalion – how a humble phonetics professor could afford consulting rooms on a street known for wealthy private medical practices.

The answer lies in the Professor Wilson’s history – his father, a doctor, bought a house in the street in 1806 and subsequently bought a neighbouring property for his son who initially pursued a medical career before moving into academia where he specialised in languages. Splitting his time between Wimpole Street, Oxford and Calcutta in India, Professor Wilson’s lifestyle, straddling high society and academia, formed a prototype for that of Professor Higgins. Or so the story goes.

PICTURE: Looking down Wimpole Street; number 27 is second on the left. PICTURE: Google Maps.