Educating Rita

The Octagon

Until Saturday, February 11

FOR most of the audience at the Octagon it would have been a case of seen the film, now see the play.

The play came first, back in 1980 by that genius playwright Willy Russell who also gave us Shirley Valentine a few years later.

Unlike the film, the play is a two hander set solely in the office of university lecturer Frank, played by David Birrell.

Rita is a working class lass who wants to better herself and for her education means choice — back in the 80s that choice was still difficult for many women.

She is feisty, funny and a grafter who 'wants to know...everything.'

Willy Russell was up against writer's block when he was commissioned to write the play, but later said "Rita just walked on to the page.

And from the first time Jessica Baglow walked on to the theatre set she made Rita her own. She was gobby and totally convincing as the young woman who didn't really know her own worth and took us all on her journey of discovery coming out at the other end with the same wisdom, but a hell of a lot more of it.

Frank battled with his own demons, a failed poet who liked the bottle too much and although he was the catalyst for Rita's transformation, he saw his prodigy become the master.

There was laughter and pathos, smoking and a lot of swearing and drinking — hopefully cold tea masquerading as whiskey — but with that wonderful pure writing by Russell.

Although the play is just short of its 40th birthday, it is still a story worth telling for a new generation.