Pygmalion: every role by lines, words, and stage time

George Bernard Shaw. 16 speaking roles, 19,299 words, about 138 minutes of speech.

The Offbook team

Oct 8, 2026

Higgins has the most to say in Pygmalion: about 845 lines and 6,860 words, 35.5% of the play. Pygmalion is Shaw’s comedy about a phonetics professor who bets he can pass off a flower seller as a lady. Higgins carries more than a third of the words and Liza nearly a quarter; in Act 1 the edition calls them The Note Taker and The Flower Girl, and we count those lines as theirs. Doolittle packs about a seventh of the words into Acts 2 and 5.

Speaking roles: 16
Scenes: 5
Words: 19,299
Speech time: 138 min

Every role, largest first

Role	Lines	Words	Share	Minutes	Scenes
Higgins	845	6,860	35.5%	49.0	5
Liza	537	4,419	22.9%	31.6	5
Doolittle	306	2,713	14.1%	19.4	2
Pickering	214	1,553	8%	11.1	5
Mrs. Higgins	181	1,367	7.1%	9.8	2
Mrs. Pearce	130	1,049	5.4%	7.5	1
Mrs. Eynsford Hill	67	460	2.4%	3.3	2
Miss Eynsford Hill	30	201	1%	1.4	2
A Bystander	22	186	1%	1.3	1
Freddy	27	165	0.9%	1.2	2
Clara	14	108	0.6%	0.8	1
The Parlormaid	18	80	0.4%	0.6	2
A Sarcastic Bystander	11	77	0.4%	0.6	1
The Bystanders Generally	5	50	0.3%	0.4	1
The Japanese Lady	1	7	0%	0.1	1
Several Bystanders	1	4	0%	0.0	1

Who speaks in which scene

Darker cells mean more words in that scene. Use it to plan rehearsal calls, or to see how long an actor waits between entrances.

Role	Act 1	Act 2	Act 3	Act 4	Act 5
Higgins
Liza
Doolittle
Pickering
Mrs. Higgins
Mrs. Pearce
Mrs. Eynsford Hill

The longest speeches

Speech	Scene	Words	Lines
Doolittle: “It ain’t the lecturing I mind. I’ll lecture th…”	Act 5	326	33
Doolittle: “Don’t say that, Governor. Don’t look at it tha…”	Act 2	283	29
Higgins: “There! That’s all you get out of Eliza. Ah—ah—…”	Act 2	222	23
Doolittle: “That’s the tragedy of it, ma’am. It’s easy to …”	Act 5	222	23
Higgins: “It’s all you’ll get until you stop being a com…”	Act 5	203	21
Higgins: “I have never sneered in my life. Sneering does…”	Act 5	173	18
Liza: “Wring away. What do I care? I knew you’d strik…”	Act 5	162	17
Higgins: “Oh, that’s what’s worrying you, is it? I shoul…”	Act 4	148	15
Liza: “Oh, you are a cruel tyrant. I can’t talk to yo…”	Act 5	144	15
Liza: “Not a bit. It never did him no harm what I cou…”	Act 3	135	14

Small roles that can be doubled

These pairs of small roles never speak in the same scene, so one actor could play both. Check entrances and silent appearances in your script before you cast it this way.

Mrs. Eynsford Hill and The Japanese Lady
Miss Eynsford Hill and The Japanese Lady
A Bystander and Clara
A Bystander and The Parlormaid
A Bystander and The Japanese Lady
Freddy and The Japanese Lady
Clara and A Sarcastic Bystander
Clara and The Bystanders Generally
Clara and The Japanese Lady
Clara and Several Bystanders
The Parlormaid and A Sarcastic Bystander
The Parlormaid and The Bystanders Generally

Questions actors ask

Who has the most lines in Pygmalion?

Higgins, with about 845 lines and 6,860 words, 35.5% of everything spoken in the play. Liza is next, with about 537 lines (22.9%).

How long is Pygmalion?

The full text has 19,299 spoken words, about 138 minutes at 140 words a minute before pauses, scene changes, and cuts. Most productions cut the text, so running times vary.

How many speaking roles are in Pygmalion?

16 named roles speak in this edition, across 5 scenes. 9 of them have less than 2% of the words, which is why small parts are often doubled.