When professor of phonetics Henry Higgins wagers with Colonel Pickering that he could teach even a gutter-mouthed flower seller how to speak like a duchess, little does he expect that his social experiment will be riddled with difficulties, and that behind her cockney parlance the girl in question, Eliza Doolittle, has a mind, ideas and aspirations of her own. Things come to a crux when the creature starts to rebel against her creator - and the scene is set for a play that questions the class system, social appearances and the role of women in society.