Educating Rita @ Liverpool Playhouse

For the first time professionally in 13 years, and celebrating its 35^th anniversary, Willy Russell’s Educating Rita returns to the stage; this time starring two Liverpool-born actors, Leanne Best and Con O’Neill. Best recently appeared in the BBC’s Ripper Street, ITV’s Lucan and will be in Sky Atlantic’s much anticipated new drama Fortitude later this year. O’Neill has also recently hit the small screan in Channel 4's ground-breaking series Cucumber and Banana.

Educating Rita – for those unfamiliar with either the play or the 1983 film version starring Julie Walters and Michael Caine – follows the journey of a working-class hairdresser determined to better herself by studying English literature at the Open University. Here she meets Frank, a middle-aged lecturer, who only does the job to pay for his drinking. The two have an immediate and dramatic impact on each other’s lives, making for one of the greatest commentaries on the shortcomings of institutional education – and indeed life as a whole – to have ever been staged.

Directed by Everyman and Playhouse artistic director Gemma Bodinetz, Educating Rita sits at the heart of a pretty impressive Everyman and Playhouse spring programme, which includes a production of Joel and Ethan Coen’s The Hudsucker Proxy.

“Educating Rita is rightly acknowledged to be one of the greatest plays of the 20th century,” says Bodinetz. “To be directing it in its home city with such a remarkable cast, both of whom began their careers here, is an honour and a joy.” You’ve got a whole month to catch it.