Educating Rita

It feels appropriate that this performance of Willy Russell’s classic 1980 play is taking place inside a university building. The set is brilliantly detailed: wooden bookshelves lined with dusty tomes, with the occasional bottle of scotch hidden behind a copy of Dickens or Forster. It’s in here that Frank, a disillusioned and perpetually drunk university professor, and Rita, a Liverpudlian hairdresser who wants to "better herself," conduct the Open University meetings and develop their blossoming friendship.

Made famous by the 1983 film starring Michael Caine and Julie Walters, this is an engaging staging of a three-decade old play that still feels relevant. Women may have more choices now than Rita did in 1980, but the issues the play raises about the value of culture and the formulaic nature of formal education still ring true.

Much of this production’s appeal seems to lie in its starry cast of two. Claire Sweeney’s Rita is just the right side of sweet and sassy, her descent into the snobberies of intellectualism neatly captured. But there’s not much chemistry between her and Matthew Kelly, who plays Frank a little too loudly and grumpily to make him a particularly likeable character. As a result, the play doesn’t quite have the frisson of excitement that it needs to make us really care about Rita and Frank’s relationship. But it’s still a pleasant and satisfying outing, if a little unadventurous.