SUM up David Leonard in two words. Handsome. Devil.

York cherishes his perennial turn as the vainglorious pantomime villain, all Shakespearean ham and Donald Sinden vowels. Then there have been the classic naughty-but-nice-to play roles at the Theatre Royal: Richard III, David Bliss in Noel Coward's Hay Fever, Elyot Chase in Private Lives.

It was only a matter of time before he played Henry Higgins, professor of phonetics, confirmed bachelor and society loose cannon, in George Bernard Shaw's Pygmalion, the spiky play that spawned the altogether sweeter My Fair Lady.

His chance comes in Damian Cruden's production at York Theatre Royal from tomorrow, and as ever, his preparation has been meticulous and knowledgeable.

"I haven't seen Anthony Asquith's film from 1938 with Leslie Higgins as Higgins, when they set it in the 1930s and Higgins smoked a pipe. The studio obviously wanted a love story with a happy ending without any question over it, whereas in the play Shaw was adamant that Higgins and Eliza shouldn't get together," he says.

"Higgins lives the life of the intellectual and is not interested in women for himself as he has put his mother on a pedestal, and has set the bar so high in terms of taste and style that he has a distrust of all women. He says that if he lets a woman into his life he becomes selfish, and those views tie in with Shaw's own jaundiced views of marriage."

Explain further, David. "Shaw was very abstemious and a vegetarian, and a socialist he founded the Fabian Society with Beatrice and Sidney Webb and Pygmalion was a platform for his socialist views.

"Everyone looks for a love story in Pygmalion and yet that is not how it ends. As far as Higgins is concerned, he sees himself as a confirmed bachelor and he will remain so, even though he does love Eliza, and she probably loves him more, but he cannot give more," he says.

"He has taught her phonetically how to speak properly and he has educated her but only Pickering shows her kindness. Yet Higgins is an idealist and essentially, underneath all those beliefs that he can live without feeling or sex, he is a good man and Eliza sees that in him."

Where does the socialism fit in? "Higgins has a socialist view in that he believes we should all be treated equally and should all have opportunities in life and the chance to be educated: all the things that Shaw believed in," says David.

Do you like Higgins? "Oh yes, he's absolutely delicious to play. He's impetuous and eccentric; he's like a wide-eyed baby; he's doesn't suffer fools and his mother is always telling him off for having no small talk, but he doesn't really mean it when he's being brusque or offhand. I don't see him as malicious, but he is wicked," says David.

"You can see similarities with David Bliss in Hay Fever they're both articulate, they play with people, like cats with mice but there are differences. The Bliss family love seeing people go into freefall because they're not as clever or as refined as they are, but Higgins sees through the hypocrisy of all that.

"He says we're supposed to be cultured but in fact we're all savages and we just have this veneer that keeps the beast at bay."

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