Theatre Royal, Glasgow
Three stars
It is more than 30 years since Willy Russell's Thatcher-era two-hander of working-class aspiration first appeared. But with higher education once again becoming the preserve of a privileged elite, there's a contemporary poignancy to what is essentially a platonic rom-com.
Tamara Harvey's touring production, co-produced by the Menier Chocolate Factory and Theatre Royal Bath, nails its Scouse colours to the mast from the off by using orchestral instrumental versions of Beatles songs as pre-show music. When pop got ideas above its station in this way and went classical, the legion of mop-topped autodidacts that came out of the closet were clearly kin of Russell's Rita.
Claire Sweeney is almost too perfectly cast as the gobby hairdresser who breezes into the book-lined study of clapped-out Open University lecturer Frank, played with warm-hearted diffidence by Matthew Kelly. As they move through a succession of 1980s cosy cardies, there's a knowing brio in the pair's exchanges that captures Russell's sense of cross-class co-dependency, even as the student outgrows her teacher. Having brought each other back to life, if Frank is a pickled hangover of a more patrician era, one only hopes Rita doesn't lose her common touch to some of the era's more materialistic pursuits beyond knowledge.
While on one level Russell's play is a rose-tinted time capsule of a more open British education system, it also offers a glimpse of what is – or was – possible. One can't help but wonder about all the latter-day Ritas who slip through the net. Perhaps they don't have the hunger of Russell's heroine, or maybe they just aren't given the chance to change themselves enough to find their own voice.
The Herald, May 30th2012
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