The leading British stage actor, whose credits include a stint on Downton Abbey, joins the cast of My Fair Lady.

Australian audiences will doubtless know him best as society editor and publisher Michael Gregson, lover of Lady Edith Crawley in Downton Abbey. Now British actor Charles Edwards is to play Professor Henry Higgins in the Brisbane and Melbourne seasons of My Fair Lady, producers Lyndon Terracini, Artistic Director of Opera Australia, and John Frost announced today.

^{Charles Edwards. Photo by Johan Persson}

Edwards will replace fellow British actor Alex Jennings, who is currently starring as the misogynistic, curmudgeonly professor of phonetics in Sydney, where the show has won rave reviews.

The 60th anniversary production of Lerner and Loewe’s musical – which is based on George Bernard Shaw’s 1913 play Pygmalion – is directed by Dame Julie Andrews, who played Eliza when the show opened on Broadway in 1956, and recreates Oliver Smith’s original sets and Cecil Beaton’s legendary costumes.

A leading man on the London stage, Edwards graduated from the prestigious Guildhall School of Music and Drama in 1992. His many theatre credits include a recent production of Harley Granville Barker’s Waste at...