Pygmalion’s Eliza Doolittle meets Chelsea’s Mykhailo Mudryk
George Bernard Shaw hardly could have anticipated his creation, Eliza Doolittle, would manifest in the form of a slick-haired Ukrainian sprinting down the wing in Chelsea blue. Yet these two stoic personalities, fiercely insistent on resilience and destined for liberation share a likeness and occupy similar terrain.
Chelsea’s goal troubles appear to be subsiding, as the Blues start to speak the same language. While Mykhailo Mudryk’s first Premier League goal in a 2-0 win against Fulham last week marked the inception of a promised redemption, Patsy Ferran enjoyed another evening transforming from flower girl to fair lady at London’s Old Vic.
Patsy Ferran attends the press night after party for “Pygmalion” at The Old Vic Theatre
Mudryk bursting into a stormy, distracted, and ambivalent Chelsea side last January is exactly how Doolittle joins the play; in media res, confronting a squabbling crowd laced with pretenders. The unfamiliar upper-strata Doolittle embraces and disrupts as they shelter from the torrential rain above instantly assures the audience of both her burning gumption and yet her marked incongruity.
Doolittle and Mudryk have points to prove. Her journey to becoming a ‘fair lady’ was as much her own personal identity struggle, as it was a self-indulgent task for the snooty linguist turned teacher Henry Higgins. He selfishly seeks to make a project out of Doolittle, rather than a person by trying to transform her cockney dialect to one of a distinguished ‘lady’.
Mudryk has so far been inarticulate in front of goal, and yet his neat, confident first-half finish past the sprawling Bernd Leno demonstrated his growth and newly acquired goalscoring vernacular.
Mykhailo Mudryk celebrates his first Premier League goal
Throughout the play, we collectively long for Doolittle’s success while simultaneously engaging with the subservience to Higgins she is bound by. We understand her emancipation to be difficult and complicated by those around her. Implicated into someone else’s story, Doolittle is forced to escape this contrived reality and carve out her own fresh one. Mudryk’s indomitable spirit similarly means plenty are rooting for his success.
Mudryk’s journey has mirrored the tumult that has enveloped Chelsea since the Boehly/Clearlake takeover in May 2022. He is calibrating a new life, while war engulfs his home country.
The angst around his slow progress has been noisy and jarring. Helplessly watching poor performances agonisingly unfurl begins to chafe the temperament of even the most hopeful onlooker. Mudryk has struggled not to telegraph his frustration, overtly confronting his plight for us all to painfully dissect. He too is adjusting to a new language and a new formulation of his identity.
Mudryk looks dejected during Chelsea’s 3-1 defeat to West Ham United in August
A surge in Mudryk’s form has consistently been prophesised to be the very thing that will revive a floundering Chelsea side. The plucky Chelsea number 10 desperately wants to change his own fortunes.
And yet, the grand inaccuracies in ideas of exactly who Mudryk is, whether this is an offence committed by the media, or indeed the fans, have gone so far that even he has become trapped in a confrontation with an imaginary version of himself.
Doolittle, conversely, is bound by both her class and womanhood, and critically also by Henry Higgins. Our two protagonists’ however align once more. They achieve freedom by dismantling the versions of themselves that others have cynically or at least carelessly assembled. Both must evolve beyond the already established but distracting ideas of themselves in order to blossom.
Mauricio Pochettino has inherited a passionate but unrefined talent, much like Doolittle herself. The main difference here however being Higgins picked Doolittle up to begin a project. Pochettino on the other hand has joined onto one and driven it in a new direction.
Pochettino gives instructions from sideline during Premier League match against Fulham
His manner lends itself to a player like Mudryk. As a result of his time at Tottenham, Pochettino has frequently been praised for both his patience and industry when it comes to moulding young players. As Doolittle herself remarks in Act V, “The difference between a lady and a flower girl is not how she behaves, but how she’s treated.”
While Higgins does somewhat facilitate a change in Doolittle’s character, their relationship is one of friction and hierarchy. Mudryk and Pochettino possess a strong and collaborative bond. Chelsea’s win against Fulham enabled the Blues boss to say, “sometimes people don’t have the patience but for us it’s about having patience.”
Doolittle was forced to be patient throughout her strife, much like how Mudryk has had to remain composed despite his frequent confrontation with disappointment.
Mudryk and Pochettino embrace at half-time during Fulham match
Higgins’ motivations were selfish and representative of his disdain for those he perceives to be lower than him, which in his case is just about everyone. Meanwhile, Pochettino has chosen to nurture Mudryk and completely lift the shackles rather than just loosen them as Higgins does.
We already know Eliza Doolittle’s fate. We bask in the glory she creates for herself, eventually surpassing Higgins and existing beyond the enclosure he has built for her. Mykhailo Mudryk’s fate hangs in the balance, at least for now. Mudryk, like Doolittle, must burst beyond the cage others have condemned him to.
