She also provides the play’s most heart-stopping – and romantic – moment, which shows these two characters brought together in a sudden burst of affection, even as they prepare to peel away into their own separate lives.Īt the Rose theatre, Kingston, until 14 November. Tompkinson sensitively distils the mid-life angst of the professor and his barely expressed, quietly possessive yearning for Rita, and while Johnson appears a little too ebullient as Rita at the start, her performance fills out and becomes more emotionally astute as she resists a romantic ending to become her own, liberated, woman. Michael Caine has rarely been better, and its a wonderful performance from both him and Julie Christie that elevates this film. Webamp Volume 90 1 Willy Russell 01:25:13 Favorite Willy Russell Educating Rita Topics Willy Russell, Educating Rita, Radio Drama Educating Rita A production of Willy Russell's comedy, a sparky and touching portrayal of the relationship between a working-class Open University student and her alcohol-fuelled tutor. Rita, for her part, challenges his prejudices and as she warms up, the play’s underlying questions of how education, and literature, can liberate us psychically begin to seem more relevant to the place and value of the arts now, in post-lockdown society. Before it does, the tone wobbles and it feels a little too lost in the past, from nostalgic references to Kim Wilde and Robin Day to the unreformed 1980s wardrobe (hot-pink jumpers, pencil skirts, gold belts), and Rita’s bright-eyed hope of transformation, which, in this period context, seems to capture the dream of upward class mobility in Thatcher’s Britain, alongside her purer desire to feed her soul with learning.Īs 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.ĭirected by Max Roberts, the story ekes out Frank’s contempt for academic snobbery but also his own inverted snobberies towards Rita, who he seems first to hail as something of a latter-day noble savage (or “native” in her words). (I was so relieved it didn’t end up like a Hollywood mawkish rom-com with artificial happy ending.It is more that the comedy doesn’t always land in the early scenes, sometimes feeling over-egged, while the drama takes its time to gather in force. At the same time, it is a brilliant two-hander, Frank’s life orbit also veers dramatically since the two form a thoroughly cordial friendship. So it is a story of Rita’s transformation from a low-class commoner to a mature woman who realises her self-worth and does embrace to the life she is really pining for. Frank Bryant (Caine), a middle-age divorcé and drunkard. Rita, aka Susan White (Walters) is a 26-year-old hairdresser, married to an ordinary electrician for 6 years, she never goes to college, but finds herself as a thirsty bookworm, thus under the aim of completing her education and take the exam, she eagerly takes an open university tutorial from a college literature professor Dr. Rita, aka Susan White (Walters) is a 26-year-old hairdresser, married to an It is not a British version of MY FAIR LADY (1964, 6/10), EDUCATING RITA goes a bit higher than that, it is about how literature can improve one’s listless life and transfigure one’s entire bearing from within. It is not a British version of MY FAIR LADY (1964, 6/10), EDUCATING RITA goes a bit higher than that, it is about how literature can improve one’s listless life and transfigure one’s entire bearing from within.
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