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A night school class to enjoy
Educating Rita Malvern Festival Theatre
EDUCATING RITA
is probably best known from the 1983 film starring Michael Caine that
shot Julie Walters to international fame. In this touring
Chocolate Factory production the character of Rita is played by Claire
Sweeney, already well known to the audience from her many television
appearances including her role as Lindsey Corkhill in Brookside. She is perfectly cast as Rita, a 26 year old
working class Liverpudlian hairdresser. Rita has become bored by
her life and feels trapped in her marriage and social circle. She
decides that studying English Literature through the Open University
will widen her horizons and give her the choices she so sorely lacks. Rita's tutor is Dr Frank Bryant, played by
Matthew Kelly. He is a jaded and alcoholic character who, to begin with,
finds his newest student to be another irritant in his underwhelming
working life, but soon begins to look forward to their weekly sessions
as he introduces her to the great writers she has never heard of . . . Frank: “Do you know Yeats?” Rita: “The wine lodge?” Frank: “ No, WB Yeats, the poet”. Rita is a breath of fresh air for Frank with her
beguilingly honest and naïve reactions to the world of academia. Being
from Liverpool herself, Claire Sweeney is a natural in this part. She is
funny, her accent is perfect, and the audience warm to her throughout. Matthew Kelly's character is less sympathetic but
he conveys with empathy the manner in which Frank had rather given up on
life until brash, loud, funny Rita crashes into his office and makes him
see education from a different angle, and perhaps fall a little in love
with her and her upbeat take on life. It is a Henry Higgins/Eliza Dolittle scenario
with both characters benefitting from meeting someone from a very
different class, age, and background. The set is impressive with thousands of books for
Frank to hide his bottles of whisky behind, and huge windows for Rita to
gaze out of as she sees her future opening up to more choices than
“Liverpool or Everton, Stork or butter, or buying a new dress and going
to the pub.” However, Willy Russell's original 1980 stage
play, which also starred Julie Walters, will perhaps always pale a
little in comparison to the fine film version, but that is to take
nothing away from Sweeney and Kelly who play their parts so well. Olivier award winning actor Kelly incidentally
was at Liverpool's Everyman Theatre in the 1970s working alongside Willy
Russell and Julie Walters as well as the likes of Bill Nighy and
the late, Pete Postlethwaite.To 19-05-12 Clare Trow
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