Educating Rita @ The Lowry, Salford

It’s a surprisingly low-key start to the Library Theatre Company’s final season before they merge with HOME. Educating Rita, Willy Russell’s play about a cynical university lecturer and his Pygmalionesque relationship with the young, working-class hairdresser of the title, may look like a safe choice after Manchester Sound’s innovation, yet Chris Honer’s production shows there is still life in the 1980 two-hander.

Many will be familiar with the 1983 film version starring Michael Caine and Julie Walters; here, Philip Bretherton (As Time Goes By) and Gillian Kearney (Casualty) step into the shoes of Frank and Rita. It’s an unlikely pairing but, with their magnetic onstage chemistry, it is easy to believe in this odd-couple relationship.

Kearney is a blaze of profanity in Frank’s stuffy office (a brilliantly realised set from Judith Croft). Bold colours and more self-assured costume changes cement her transformation from hairdresser to academic. Kearney’s likeable down-to-earth nature and blossoming performance prove to be highlights of this production.

While Frank’s initial optimism regarding Rita shines through in the first half, the second half is all about Bretherton’s deft handling of Frank’s increasing disappointment as it manifests itself in his alcoholism. Bretherton can work an audience, and provides much of the punchier second half’s comedy. It's testament to the character that Bretherton almost makes you feel sorry for Frank, despite his having been the architect of his own destruction.

Chris Honer’s direction keeps events warm and sharp, if occasionally disjointed with some longer-than-necessary scene changes – though these scene changes are supplemented with a carefully chosen playlist of 80s hits that also neatly reflect the change in Rita.

With its observations of an increasingly archaic education system and class inequality, Educating Rita is a play that still has relevance today. And with such an accomplished production, rather than looking back, it will be a brave new future for HOME if work of this quality can be maintained.