My fair lady is a beloved play and musical, but more and more, modern audiences bristle at the ending. Shaw wrote himself into a corner by making the story about the relationship between Eliza and Higgins and then trying to attach her to Freddy while still keeping Higgins in her life. His ending didn’t work very well, but we can use his suggested revised ending to fix it.

The only way to really save it is to embrace the way Shaw has set up Higgins as a father figure—he virtually created Eliza as surely as Pygmalion (his title for the play) created Galatea—and use that to free Eliza. She becomes a daughter with a difficult relationship with her father and who leaves home to marry. Shaw never wanted Eliza to marry Higgins anyway but merely to reconcile. He even wrote an addendum about Eliza and Freddy having a flower shop that he never actually wrote into the play itself, thus muddying things rather than clarifying.

This is helped already by the song “On the Street Where You Live”. Freddy sings it about Higgins’ house, because that’s where Eliza is living, not as Higgins’ lover but as a kind of foster daughter. This is therefore the traditional situation of a young suitor coming to whisk a daughter away from her overbearing father, and we should lean into it and create a scene that uses Shaw’s addendum.

My Ending Solution

Time has passed after Eliza left to marry Freddy. Pickering has set Eliza & Freddy up with a successful flower shop. A lonely Higgins sings “I’ve Grown Accustomed to her Face” (a beat added to the film to soften him) and walks to Mr and Mrs Eynsford-Hill’s flower shop. He finds Eliza deftly catering to a wealthy woman and then a common flower girl like she once was. They leave, & Eliza has a seat in the “one enormous chair” she always wanted.

Pickering & Freddy enter but look on quietly as Higgins says, “I washed my face & hands before I come, I did.” They all have a good laugh at Higgins’ expense, and Higgins gets to re-enter Eliza’s life as a father figure with the understanding that she’s fully self-actualized. Maybe even Pickering gets a line like, “Ha ha! Now who needs lessons?”

Additional Tweaks

It’s a good solution that nevertheless requires us to make other slight changes. We need to eliminate Liza’s intention to become Karpathy’s assistant. It’s a kluge to try to ensure her a decent living. That’s a small change.

But “Just You Wait, Henry Higgins”, while being a wonderful song we can’t just cut, is a surprisingly romantic one. How? Because, while it seems to be about Eliza’s hatred of Higgins, it features her assuming that she will remain in his life to witness a moment when he’s in trouble, including being expected to care for him when he’s sick and swimming in the sea with him. That’s a very domestic situation.

But a daughter as well as a wife might care for a sick man or swim in the sea with him. We can fix the song by adding some reference to Eliza going off with a beau. Then she’s specifically (symbolically, at least) leaving a father figure to die while she starts a new life with a husband. We can move the “I’ll have money” lines to replace the “swimming in the sea” verse and replace it at the beginning with a reference to suitors, then modify the “when you’re sick” verse to also mention a beau. Then the “I’ll have money” verse clarifies that she’s out of his house and living her own life.

• Just you wait, ‘enry ‘iggins, just you wait
  You’ll be sorry, but your tears’ll be too late
  You’ll be wrecked, and I’ll have suitors
  And they’ll all be armed with shooters [makes finger guns]
  Just you wait, ‘enry ‘iggins, just you wait
• Just you wait, ‘enry ‘iggins, ’til you’re sick
  And you scream to fetch a doctor double-quick
  I’ll go straight to the the-ater
  with some steamship operator
  Oh ho ho, ‘enry ‘iggins, just you wait
• Just you wait, ‘enry ‘iggins, just you wait
  You’ll be famished and have nothin’ on your plate
  You’ll be broke, and I’ll have money
  Will I help you? Don’t be funny!
  Oh ho ho, ‘enry ‘iggins,
  Oh ho ho, ‘enry ‘iggins,
  just you wait!
• 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 Liza Doolittle Day!
• “All the people will celebrate the glory of you
  “And whatever you wish and want I gladly will do.”
  “Thanks a lot, King,” says I, in a manner well-bred,
  “But all I want is ‘enry ‘iggins ‘ead”
  • “Done,” says the King with a stroke
    “Guard, run and bring in the bloke”
• Then they’ll march you, ‘enry ‘iggins to the wall,
  And the King will tell me “Liza, sound the call”
  As they lift their rifles higher
  I’ll shout: “Ready—aim—fire!”
  Oh ho ho, ‘enry ‘iggins
  down you’ll go, ‘enry ‘iggins
  Just you wait!