It's a good time for George Bernard Shaw. His sharp analyses of his characters’ questionable motives and moral equivocations seem to chime well with our era. After a surprisingly moving revival of St Joan and an effective staging of the caustic but problematic Major Barbara, both at the National, comes Peter Hall’s acclaimed Bath Theatre Royal production of Shaw’s brightest and best comedy.

Those who know the story of guttersnipe Eliza Doolittle and ’Enry ’Iggins, the professor who trains her to pass for a duchess, chiefly from Lerner and Lowe’s My Fair Lady, will be surprised by Pygmalion. The source play is much more cutting and witty than the musical, less saccharinely romantic and more political. It is also the play in which Shaw reined in his tendency to hector, where his fondness for one-liners helps rather than scuppers the action.

Hall loves the play and has been hopping from foot to foot (metaphorically speaking — he is 77) to effect a London transfer. He is convinced he found the perfect cast for it in Bath last year — not just the estimable likes of Tim Pigott-Smith and James Lauren-son as Higgins and his friend Colonel Pickering, but also newcomer Michelle Dockery as Eliza.

Dockery narrowly missed out (to the excellent Rory Kinnear) on the Ian Charleson Award for a classical performance by a young actor for her Eliza. She got rave reviews and has since played a poised and beautiful Yelena for Hall in a touring production of Uncle Vanya.

The transfer was worth the wait, as it turns out, because Kevin Spacey has invited Hall back to his spiritual home. The director saw some of his first plays at the Old Vic as a boy, moved in when it was still home to the National Theatre after taking over from Laurence Olivier, and took up residence with his own company there in the late Nineties until the sale of the building forced him regretfully to leave.

Hall says he “cannot imagine a better home” for Pygmalion. Nor can I.

Previewing now; booking to 2 August (0870 060 6628; www.oldvictheatre.com)