Educating Rita (Modern Classics)

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The screenplay format of the book made me so happy, as I love screenplays! I know that plays are meant to be watched, not read, but I couldn’t help it, and absolutely loved it! 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. i'm busy findin' meself, let alone findin' someone else. i don't want anyone else. i've begun to find me - an' it's great y'know, it is frank. it might sound selfish but all i want for the time bein' is inside of me. i certainly don't wanna be rushin' off with some feller, cos the first thing i'll have to do is forget about meself for the sake of him." Susan (who initially calls herself Rita), dissatisfied with the routine of her work and social life, seeks inner growth by signing up for and attending an Open University course in English Literature. The play opens as 'Rita' meets her tutor, Frank, for the first time. Frank is a middle-aged, alcoholic career academic who has taken on the tutorship to pay for his drink. The two have an immediate and profound effect on one another; Frank is impressed by Susan's verve and earnestness and is forced to re-examine his attitudes and position in life; Susan finds Frank's tutelage opens doors to a bohemian lifestyle and a new self-confidence. However, Frank's bitterness and cynicism return as he notices Susan beginning to adopt the pretensions of the university culture he despises. Susan becomes disillusioned by a friend's attempted suicide and realises that her new social niche is rife with the same dishonesty and superficiality she had previously sought to escape. The play ends as Frank, sent to Australia on a sabbatical, welcomes the possibilities of the change. the Laurence Olivier Award for Best New Comedy for Educating Rita (1980) and for Shirley Valentine (1988)

It wasa big character change for me up until that point I’d been playing Michael Caine-ish in everything.The most extraordinary thing about that role for me was that I could find nothing of myself in it.He was the farthest away from myself I’d ever been with a character, which is the ideal place for an actor to be.Julie Walters really helped me look good. She’d never done a movie before.She’d done the play, so she was very into the characters, but I thought she played down, into the style of film acting, just beautifully. A lot of theatre actors would have gone over the top with it” Frank invites her to a dinner party Julia is hosting, but Rita doesn’t attend. She tells him later that she felt all wrong to show up. She didn’t feel like she was wearing the right things or bringing the right wine. Frank tells her that none of that matters, that she only had to be herself, but she gets offended and feels like he wants to show her off as an attraction. Russell adapted his play for radio in 2009, which starred Bill Nighy and Laura Dos Santos. Ninety minutes long, it was broadcast on BBC Radio 4 on Boxing Day in 2009.

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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 ] The original production received the 1980 Olivier Award nomination for Comedy Performance of the Year for Julie Walters and won for Comedy of the Year. [7] See also [ edit ]

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. Russell's other worldwide theatrical success has been Blood Brothers, "a Liverpudlian folk opera" about a pair of twins separated at birth and brought up in completely different environments. It won the Olivier Award for Best New Musical in 1983. Its 1988 revival had over 10,000 consecutive performances during its 24-year West End run, which ended in November 2012. Simultaneously, there were UK touring and international productions, including a two-year run on Broadway starting in 1993. The Broadway production was nominated for the 1993 Tony Award, Best Musical. [21] [22] [23] 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.” She writes an essay on her favorite book, but Frank criticizes it saying that it was too subjective. He wants her to produce real criticism, but this is difficult for her to do. She read a Forster book that Frank mentioned but couldn’t get into it because Forster mentioned that he hated poor people. Frank is amused by her feelings.Willy Russell's first novel, The Wrong Boy, was published in 2000. Russell has provided the musical scores for the feature films, Shirley Valentine, Dancin' Thru The Dark and Mr Love, as well as for the TV series Connie and the television play Terraces. Willy Russell released his first album, Hoovering the Moon, in 2003. The Willy Russell archive In 2000, Russell published his first novel, The Wrong Boy. In epistolary form, main character Raymond Marks, a 19-year old from Manchester, tells the story of his life in letters to his hero Morrissey.