Educating Rita (Modern Classics)

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William Russell is a British dramatist, lyricist, and composer. His best-known works are Educating Rita, Shirley Valentine, and Blood Brothers. Rita asks Frank if he is married, and he says that he was once. As they continue their lessons, Franks world-weariness begins to show, and he is more down than up. He says that he wouldn’t hide so much from his girlfriend if she were more like Rita. Rita doesn’t take these comments seriously. Instead, she laughs them off. In today's episode of Trini Hates Required Reading, I actually liked the book I had to read for uni, yay! While working as a teacher, Willy Russell continued to write for the theatre and for television. He produced several television dramas for the BBC, including Our Day Out, which was first broadcast in 1977. Much of his early theatre work was produced at the Everyman Theatre in Liverpool, including:

Russell has also written television projects, including the one-off drama, Our Day Out, which aired in 1977. He penned another television drama, One Summer, which aired as a five-part series on Channel 4 in 1983, starring a young David Morrissey.RITA (...)studyin' was just for the whimps, wasn't it? See, if I'd started takin' school seriously I would have had to become different from me mates, an' that's not allowed.(...)Not that I went along with it so reluctantly. I mean, there was always somethin' in me head, tappin' away, tellin' me I might have got it all wrong. But I'd just play another record or buy another dress an' stop worryin'. There's always somethin' to make you forget about it. So y' do, y' keep goin', tellin' yourself life's great. There's always another club to go to, a new feller to be chasin', a laugh an' a joke with the girls. Till, one day, y' own up to yourself an' y' say, is this it? Is this the absolute maximum I can expect from this livin' lark? RITA Yeh. An' it might be worthless in the end. But I had a choice. I chose, me. Because of what you'd given me I had a For popular comedies that always seem to sell well when they do appear, it's surprising that we don't see professional revivals of Willy Russell's plays very often at all.

Caine and Walters both won BAFTA and Golden Globe awards for best actor and actress. The British Film Institute ranked Educating Rita the 84th greatest British film of the 20th century. [4] Plot [ edit ] RITA They'll tell y' they've got culture as they sit there drinkin' their keg beer out of plastic glasses. FRANK (...)When I was at university there was a student taking his final theology exam. He walked into the examination hall, took out his pen and wrote 'God knows all the answers', then he handed in his paper and left. Maslin, Janet (21 September 1983). "Educating Rita (1983)". The New York Times . Retrieved 7 August 2010.John, Paul, George, Ringo...and Bert' Production History" broadwayworld.com, retrieved 23 April 2019

Educating Rita is a stage comedy by British playwright Willy Russell. It is a play for two actors set entirely in the office of an Open University tutor. Frank, a middle-aged professor, drinks scotch in his university office and has a telephone conversation with Julia, his girlfriend. Sipping his drink, he tells her that he’ll miss dinner because he has to give a private tutoring session to a woman taking night classes at the university. He adds that he plans to go to the pub after the tutorial, saying that the entire reason he agreed to take on this extra teaching load was to pay for his drinking habit. When he hangs up, his student arrives. Her name is Rita, a hairdresser with a large personality. Within minutes of arriving, she surprises Frank by swearing and talking bluntly about a nude painting hanging in his office. Although some of her observations are crass, he’s pleasantly surprised by her wit and commentary. The Wrong Boy, Willy Russell's first novel, was published in 2000. [ citation needed] In 2004, Russell returned to his original singer/songwriter roots, releasing his album, Hoovering the Moon on Pure Records. Russell also co-produced the Tim Firth album Harmless Flirting. [ citation needed] FRANK (breaking away slightly) Of course he failed. You see, a clever answer is not necessarily the correct answer. As the comedy calms and the drama sets in, the actors build a chemistry that contains more intellectual tensions to become a better, deeper, play with an almost painful tenderness between them by the end.

The director adds: “Educating Rita contains all the hallmarks of what audiences love in a play. It’s funny, entertaining, thought-provoking and – even after the 40 plus years since Willy Russell wrote it – very relevant.” the Laurence Olivier Award for Best New Comedy for Educating Rita (1980) and for Shirley Valentine (1988)