IS Pygmalion better than its musical spin-off, My Fair Lady?

"They're just so different," says York Theatre Royal artistic director Damian Cruden, who has revived the play about phonetics professor Henry Higgins turning Cockney flower girl Eliza Doolittle into the toast of London society.

"It's a very funny, witty piece, and it has that in common with the musical, which is Pygmalion Lite. That would suggest Pygmalion is heavy but it's not. It's a very balanced play in which comedy and, to some extent, tragedy sit comfortably inside the drama.

"It's able to make comments on the nature of the society we live in and on dysfunctional individuals, who throw light on the social mores of their time that still hold true to day.

"Yet the first ten minutes are in some ways quite cinematic, and when you see Eliza walking across the stage with a basket of flowers, it could only be Eliza and no-one else and people have that image from My Fair Lady and not Pygmalion."

Maybe it is better to judge Pygmalion in its own right, with its dangerous game of a social experiment that raises questions about social class, human behaviour and the battle of the sexes.

"Pygmalion is Cinderella meets Frankenstein, the politics of sex in a comedy of manners," says Damian. "It was written at a time of great political legislative reform when Shaw believed that an understanding of phonetics could dismantle the British class system, but the play's relevance to our world today is still undeniable.

"We continue to be defined by our outward demeanour and it's still true that financial security is necessary for individuals if they're to be able to contribute effectively to our society."

Damian says the absence of songs means there is more emphasis on points of discussion in Pygmalion, a comedy of manners that analyses what is acceptable in linguistic terms and in marriage. He notes, too, how Shaw's play continues to spawn imitations on screen. "The bet that Higgins can pass off Eliza as a duchess in six months is a forerunner of Faking It, which has been hugely successful on Channel 4," he says.

"We love that thing of all the absolutes of society, at the end of the day, being flimsy and fickle and not worth the paper they're printed on. It's all to do with the mores of a corrupt society that likes to exclude others from their privileges.

"One way of doing that is through the way people sound, or the way they look or where they come from. This divide has always been there and probably always will be.

"We're fascinated not only with what tells us who people are but also with people trying to tell us they're something they're not."

Pygmalion, York Theatre Royal, until June 17. Box office: 01904 623568.