These days musicals don’t have the best PR. The very word musical conjures up an image of a smug-faced Andrew Lloyd-Webber sitting on his special throne, little legs swinging joyfully, admiring the proceedings at the third primetime BBC One show dedicated to filling his monogrammed money bags.

But you have to salute musicals. Fifty years ago today, My Fair Lady opened in the West End with the legendary Julie Andrews and Rex Harrison in the starring roles. It's based on the story of a bet made between two linguistics professors: in order to win the bet, Professor Henry Higgins has to transform a cockney flower girl, Eliza Doolittle, into a proper lady so that she can be passed off as a duchess at The Embassy Ball. The musical opened to a big trumpetty fanfare, crowds lined the streets and touts got into rucks with the police for selling tickets for a huge £5… five times their face value. It ended up breaking box office records and was seen by almost four and a half million people in London alone. Most importantly, in much the same way that signing up little Andrew has changed the BBC’s Saturday night viewing figures, My Fair Lady changed our lives forever. And here’s how.

It is the inspiration for the makeover...

Imagine a world in which there is no character in any teen movie who wears thick-rimmed glasses, braces on her teeth and is unfamiliar with a mascara wand, at least for the first half of the film. Until, that is, she's taken in hand by the popular girls in the lead-up to some type of senior prom and suddenly, via the miracle of contact lenses, lippy and a backless dress, becomes a vixen. Cue open-mouthed, lusting boys and bitching, jealous girls. This is the world we would inhabit, had the ultimate makeover musical not been created.

…and where would we be without makeover TV?

If George Bernard Shaw were writing a 2008 Pygmalion (which MFL is based on) Eliza Doolittle would be checking into the Ladette To Lady country house where she'd receive etiquette coaching from the likes of Jean Broke-Smith who would gasp theatrically every time she swore (although she would presumably excel at the flower-arranging bit, having previously worked on a flower stall). Gok Wan would be shipped in to insist that she got naked and spray tan her a sort of burnt umber colour in an attempt to needlessly boost her confidence. Meanwhile, 10 Years Younger stick-android Nicky Hambleton-Jones would be wheeling in a rack of clothes and a telly on which she'd play a DVD of people in the street telling her that she looked an average age of 140, with the only possible solution being urgent botox and a row of caps on her teeth. Trinny and Susanna would be groping at her boobs and arse, tutting and suggesting the wearing of chin to knee Spanx-style control pants and the whole encounter would end with the makeover "team" scrutinizing her day at Ascot from the privacy of a horse box via a live video feed.

It introduced Mary Poppins. Practically perfect in every way

My Fair Lady launched Julie Andrews’ career. She was appearing in The Boy Friend on Broadway when My Fair Lady's director came to see her and, as the story goes, cast her after just two songs. The only blow came when Jack Warner made the misguided decision not to cast our Julie in the 1964 film version. Despite the fact that Audrey Hepburn’s voice was just under British Eurovision entry standard (nil points), she was cast as Eliza and her voice had to be dubbed by Marni Nixon for all the songs. A kick in the teeth for Ju, but, in true determined Sound Of Music marching-down-road-with-bags style, she soldiered on and eventually had not one but two last laughs. She was cast instead as the Mary Poppins we all know and love and won both a best actress Oscar and a Golden Globe for her performance (while Audrey won nada). Better than that, she had a dig at Jack Warner in her Oscar acceptance speech, thanking him for, “making all this possible in the first place”. And that is what you get for messing with Julie Andrews.

It's the original heartwarming social lesson

Not only do you have the lovely, satisfying storyline of controlling misogynist Henry Higgins getting his comeuppance when he realises he’s in love with Eliza and she’s run off because he was such a git, you also have a nice reminder that it’s what’s inside that counts, no matter whether your handbag’s a Chloe tote or a fiver off the market. It’s that classic Pretty Woman formula that will be repeated ad infinitum, all thanks to good old My Fair Lady. Loverly, as Eliza would say.