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Stars explained: * A production of no real merit
with failings in all areas. ** A production showing evidence of not
enough time or effort, or even talent, and which never breathes any real
life into the piece – or a show lumbered with a terrible script. *** A
good enjoyable show which might have some small flaws but has largely
achieved what it set out to do.**** An excellent show which shows a
great deal of work and stage craft with no noticeable or major
flaws.***** A four star show which has found that extra bit of magic
which lifts theatre to another plane. |
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Carl Horton as Frank explaining the finer points of literature to Helen Freebury's Rita Educating Rita Grange Playhouse ***** There is far more to Willie Russell’s tale of the relationship between a 29 year-old Liverpool hairdresser searching for the education she never embraced, or more accurately, avoided at school, and a middle aged, university English literature lecturer who has signed up for a bit of overtime as an Open University tutor to help fund his enthusiastic support for the distillers of The Famous Grouse. On the face of it, it is a simple comedy, an erudite, if never quite sober lecturer Frank delighted by an attractive, working class, housewife, Rita, with her infectious enthusiasm and a refreshing and alarmingly honest view on life. She wants to know . . . well, everything, having learned little apart from her perceived place in society during her mandatory time at school, an establishment she left without leaving any mark, or taking any exams. The Open University, she somehow sees, as not quite a proper university, like the one where Frank works, but one for the likes of her, where she can learn to be educated and know things, hopefully becoming like the students on the lawns outside Franks office window. Her name real name is Susan but she calls herself Rita, a name chnage paying a sort of homage to Rita Mae Brown and her 1973 debut novel Rubyfruit Jungle, notable at the time for its explicit portrayal of lesbianism - the play first opened in 1980 remember. It was a sign of her DIY quest to learn about literature and, incidentally, was a novel outside the literary horizons of Frank. Not that she is a lesbian, far from it, nor is Frank dismissive beyond his considered view that it came under the category of pulp fiction rather than literature.
Carl Horton's Famous Grouse fuelled, hip flasked Frank We open this lovely production as Rita arrives for her first session with Frank who is already regretting signing up for the tutor gig, explaining on the telephone to partner Julia why he will be late home and already planning his escape to the pub and a welcoming pint, or four, of Guinness. Carl Horton is a convincing Frank. He is not really hostile to Rita, but it’s not difficult to see that he hardly regards her as the answer to a question he is not quite sure has actually been asked. Helen Freebury is a breath of fresh air as Rita, looking up to Frank because he is educated and she wants him to teach her, to make her like the real students, which is ironic as her real appeal to Frank is that she is devoid of the pretentions and self importance of the students and affected inhabitants of academia. From an unpromising beginning the drive to learn by Rita slowly awakens in Frank a love of literature and the books lining the shelves whose purpose had become merely a means of hiding the Scotch bottles stashed behind. They even end up on theatre visits and Rita discovers Shakespeare! From being “an appalling teacher” as he described himself, Frank starts to act as a real tutor, forcing Rita to cast a critical eye beyond merely describing a book as “crap”, now she has to explain why it is crap with reasoned literary criticism. The relationship between the pair grows, with tension for both at home. Julia is unhappy at Frank’s late nights, drinking and hatred of eggs . . . don’t ask, while Denny, Rita’s husband, is furious at finding he thought they had been trying for a family for the past two years and she was still on the pill. She bemoans the fact he wanted to know where the girl he married had gone, replaced by the woman she had become. It is a theme Russell was to revisit and turn around in . . with Light Romance and the girl inside the woman.
Rita with a home life in trouble and still far from finding her purpose Frank’s drinking reaches its zenith when he falls off the rostrum . . . twice . . . in a lecture while tired and emotional as a newt, although he proudly declares he never stopped talking either going down or coming back up. Something not really taken into account by the university authorities as the student complaints arrived. Horton manages that difficult act of appearing drunk well. It is easy to drift into panto staggering but here Frank is . . . well a drunk. It is to have repercussions for him, just as a summer school was to have repercussions for Rita. Her appeal to Frank was her freshness, her honesty, her difference and, after an intense OU residential course, full of late night discussions, she is in danger of becoming just another of the pretentious students and staff who inhabited academia, her individual, interesting, original thoughts becoming tempered by an adherence to tedious convention. A near tragic event brings Rita back from the brink but a blow up between pretentious student and her hollow thoughts and a disappointed cynical tutor losing the Rita he loved is inevitable, as is the reunion after her, successful, exams. Franks drinking has had its consequences with a period of antipodean banishment as his punishment while Rita . . . well, she might not know everything, but she is well on the way to being educated as Susan, and is finding who she really is. This is a fine production, well paced, with some quick costume changes by Rita; There are laughs, out loud at times, and you start to care for the characters, the flaws and disappointments of long time ago serious poet Frank and in yer face Rita desperately trying to learn, to find herself. There is an emotional relationship between them which is never in danger of becoming more than a growing friendship, the jaded lecturer rekindling a purpose in life and a young woman being encouraged to find both herself and the wonders of literature. Always interesting, always funny, a lovely evening of theatre directed by Sara Bissett. Roger Clarke 13-09-24 |
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