9/13/2023 0 Comments Educating rita russellHe had that ‘Frank-like’ effect that Rita experiences. He opened up my mind and gave me the confidence to go searching for myself. He’d gone as far as he could go and then started lecturing. “My father-in-law (Michael Seagrott) was a librarian at Hornsea Library. But who was his Frank? Who acted as his mentor, encouraging him to write? “It wasn’t a formal teacher,” he tells me. In Russell’s own life, his journey of seeking is similar to Rita’s. She hopes that a new home will bring her inner peace, Shirley Valentine’s quest takes her to a Greek island, and Rita experiences the thrill that newfound knowledge can give a person with working-class roots. Mrs Johnstone in Blood Brothers wants far more than “Easy Terms”. Let me hand over to my guest contributor Glenn to tell you more…Ī common thread in Willy’s work is that many of his characters are seeking something. O’Neill is a Russell veteran he won an Olivier for Blood Brothers, and has also starred in One for the Road and the film Dancin’ Thru the Dark, an adaptation of Stags and Hens. The anniversary production of Russell’s two-hander is directed by Liverpool Everyman and Playhouse artistic director Gemma Bodinetz and stars native Liverpudlians Leanne Best as Rita and Con O’Neill as her tutor Frank, who, according to Russell, are “electric” together. My former Northwest Editor at, Glenn Meads, recently met up with Willy Russell, whose iconic play Educating Rita has “come home” to Liverpool Playhouse this month to celebrate its 35th birthday. And that’s why I’m staying.Leanne Best and Con O’Neill in Educating Rita at the Liverpool Playhouse I said, ‘Why are y’ cryin’, Mother?’ She said, ‘Because- because we could sing better songs than those.’ Ten minutes later Denny had her laughing and singing again, pretending she hadn’t said it. So we did, an’ on the way home I asked her why. Everyone just said she was pissed an’ we should get her home. But when I looked round me mother had stopped singin’, an’ she was cryin’, but no one could get it out of her why she was cryin’. Well I did join in with the singin’, I didn’t ask any questions, I just went along with it. (Angrily) You think I can, don’t you? Just because you pass a pub doorway an’ hear the singin’ you think we’re all O.K., that we’re all survivin’, with the spirit intact. An’ I stood in that pub an’ thought, just what the frig am I trying to do? Why don’t I just pack it in an’ stay with them, an’ join in the singin’? I went into the pub an’ they were singin’, all of them singin’ some song they’d learnt from the juke- box. I went back to the pub where Denny was, an’ me mother, an’ our Sandra, an’ her mates. An’ I can’t talk to the likes of them on Saturday, or them out there, because I can’t learn the language. I can’t talk to the people I live with anymore. I’m all right with you, here in this room but when I saw those people you were with I couldn’t come in. Well, she can’t be like that really but bring her in because she’s good for a laugh! Me? What’s me? Some stupid woman who gives us all a laugh because she thinks she can learn, because she thinks one day she’ll be like the rest of them, talking seriously, confidently, with knowledge, livin’ a civilised life. I didn’t want to come to your house just to play the court jester.(.)īut I don’t want to be myself. I wanna talk seriously with the rest of you, I don’t wanna spend the night takin’ the piss, comin’ on with the funnies because that’s the only way I can get into the conversation. (angrily) But I don’t wanna be charming and delightful: funny.
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