Educating Rita, about a working-class Liverpool girl's hunger for education, is 'simply a marvellous play, painfully funny and passionately serious; a hilarious social documentary; a fairy-tale with a quizzical, half-happy ending.' Sunday Times Educating Rita premiered at the RSC Warehouse, London, in June 1980. Voted Best Comedy of 1980, it was subsequently made into a highly successful film with Michael Caine and Julie Walters.
Willy Russell, born in Whiston near Liverpool, is one of the most popular and successful contemporary playwrights whose works are studied in schools and colleges. His plays include: One for the Road, Stags and Hens, Educating Rita, Blood Brothers and Shirley Valentine.
