Leanne Best: Reviving Rita in Liverpool
Leanne Best talks to The Skinny during rehearsals for the return of Educating Rita to the Liverpool Playhouse
“I don’t think the right word is pressure, but I do feel a great weight of responsibility playing Rita,” says Leanne Best, set to return to the Liverpool Playhouse stage in February to star alongside Con O’Neill in Willy Russell’s Educating Rita. It is the first professional production of the play to be produced in its home city for 13 years, in what is its 35th anniversary year. “That level of responsibility comes with any role, but, because Liverpool is crammed to the rafters with such a wealth of female acting talent and the part is so iconic, it is really special to be given the opportunity to play Rita. When the director, Gemma [Bodinetz], phoned and asked if I would consider the part, I actually had a bit of a cry.”
That Best would be the first choice to play a part made famous on film in 1983 by Julie Walters – who also made her acting breakthrough at the Liverpool Everyman and Playhouse theatres – should come as no surprise. She first made her stage presence felt back in 2006 playing Ali in the critically acclaimed, Nina Raine directed play Unprotected, which centred around the safety of prostitutes in the city at a time when it was being mooted that the City Council would set up safe areas in which the women could work.
Another hit on Best’s CV came the following year with Stephen Sharkey’s The May Queen alongside Cathy Tyson, before possibly her finest hour to date playing Sal in Frank McGuinness’s one woman tour de force The Matchbox, which won Best New Play at the prestigious 2012 Off West End Awards. In the 90 minute play, Best plays a mother tortured by grief, which showcased the actor’s ability to carry off such powerful roles.
Playing Rita, then, who is in every sense a Liverpool every woman, should come easily: “It is actually the thing you have to watch for in rehearsals”, laughs Best. “Coming from Liverpool, I’m like everybody else and really can’t help but have a deep connection with the play – we can identify with it. That’s the genius of Willy’s writing.”
Playing Frank is another Liverpool acting legend, Con O’Neill, who last appeared on stage in Liverpool in 2011 at the old Everyman Theatre, in Robert Farquhar’s Dead Heavy Fantastic. “My God, Con is just so good and I know that sounds like such an obvious thing to say but it’s true. This is the first time we’ve worked together and it was only when I got the part that I met him for the first time, over a cup of tea in London, and we just hit it off straight away. He is such a magical actor and I am learning so much from him. We both know we have to get this play absolutely right so that our chemistry allows the humour to shine through, as well as highlighting the really big themes of the play.”
There is also another fresh challenge for Best to face: she has never worked in a two-hander before. “I’ve heard people say it is one of the most difficult things you can do as an actor, because developing the core of each character is vital. It’s a bit like what Bob Dylan said, what you need to do is play three chords and the truth. Every play brings its own challenges, but one of the biggest with Educating Rita is the sheer volume of words: it is huge. Learning The Matchbox, although I was on my own on stage, was in some ways easier because I had the support of the writer, the director and the stage manager around me so I could develop an atmosphere of my own in which that play could work. With Educating Rita, Gemma, Con and I have had to develop an atmosphere that works for us as individuals, Con and me as a partnership and for the play as a whole. We’re halfway into rehearsals and we’ve reached that lovely point now where when its working it is working really, really well. It is a beautiful meeting of all three energies in one room.”
Since The Matchbox, Best has had a wealth of television roles come her way. In BBC's Ripper Street she plays Jane Cobden alongside Matthew Macfadyen and in ITV's Lucan she played murdered nanny Sandra Rivett in a cast that featured Rory Kinnear in the title role and Christopher Eccleston. Eccletson also appears in Leanne’s next TV production to air, the much anticipated Sky Atlantic crime drama Fortitude, which boasts a cast also including Stanley Tucci, Michael Gambon and Sofie Grabol. “That was something of an experience I can tell you, being surrounded by a cast of such overwhelming talent,” says Best. “It was very exciting and really nice at the same time.
“One of the producers had seen me in The Matchbox when it had transferred to London, so it was genuinely one of those mad things of being in the right place at the right time. Michael Caine was once asked why he’s so prolific and he said it’s because when he started he didn’t know where the next job was coming from. That’s sort of my outlook, and so far I have been incredibly lucky with the opportunities I’ve been given because the breadth and depth of characters I’ve played has really stretched me as an actor.
“I used to waitress in a Mexican restaurant next door to the old Everyman, which is where I was when I found out I had won a scholarship for LIPA, and I remember walking past a massive photograph they had outside of the legendary 1970s ensemble. The likes of Bill Nighy, Mathew Kelly, Jonathan Price, Trevor Eve and, of course, Julie Walters are on that photo and I used to dream of performing on that same stage someday. Now here I am, at The Playhouse, in Liverpool, playing a part Julie Walters made famous 35 years previously. It’s brilliant isn’t it?”