Educating Rita

Whilst most people will have seen or at least heard of the film version of this play starring Michael Caine and Julie Walters many may not know the 1980 stage play from which it is adapted.   The play follows the developing relationship between Susan (also known as Rita) a student on an Open University course on English Literature and Frank her tutor a middle-aged alcoholic university lecturer.

The play misses out most of the extraneous scenes of the film and concentrates solely on the interaction between Rita and Frank in his study during the year of her course.

Congratulations must go to David Wood’s for his direction which proved very successful in bringing out the developing and changing relationship between the pair during the year.

Eva Cook played Rita, the Liverpudlian uneducated hairdresser living a working class lifestyle with her equally working class husband and believing there must be more to life.  She developed the character well from the very nervous and unsure character with lots of enthusiasm and little knowledge but an enormous desire to learn and improve herself.   At the end of the play she was the far more confident character with a view of her own willing to take on and argue her own point of view on the great English poets and writers.  I heard every word she said and thoroughly enjoyed her performance.   If I have a criticism it is that more could have been made of the Liverpudlian comedy elements which I felt at times became rather lost in the dialogue.

Simon Brown played Frank the university lecturer well, he was a good foil to much of the Liverpudlian humour delivered by Rita,  I did feel at times that he could have brought out more light and shade in the character particularly given the amount of drink he was consuming.

The two characters had a profound influence on each other and by the end of the play you felt that there had been a real change in both characters, Rita becoming a much more confident and educated woman and Frank becoming altogether a more agreeable and tolerant person despite rather than because the rather copious amounts of drink he consumed.

These are both difficult parts, with both characters being on stage for virtually the whole of the play, well done to everyone who brought this production together; it was excellent and kept the action moving along at a good pace throughout.  The set and lighting were everything they needed to be however I wondered how an alcoholic lecturer managed to find the time and motivation to keep it so tidy!

I had forgotten what a lovely theatre the Green Club have on West Walls, the seats and the stage almost meet and you feel drawn into the action on stage which really helps with this type of production.   It was pity the audience was small however they found themselves competing on the night I attended with another Noda society production at the much larger Sands Centre in Carlisle

Thanks to David Wood and the members for making my wife and I welcome and we look forward to further visits to Carlisle Green Room Club.

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