Educating Rita

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.

'Russell plays don't date, any more than Jane Austin novels- Rita is a universal figure: any of us in a time of transition, increasingly uncomfortable in our old world but, as yet, unproven in the new.' Libby Purves, The Times, 28.07.10 'Willy Russell is a dramatistof exceptional warmth and humanity.' Henry Hitchings, Evening Standard, 28.07.10 'Russell, too easily dismissed as a slavish populist, her seems a cherishably perceptive observer of the vagaries of social class and sexual politics.' Henry Hitchings, Evening Standard, 28.07.10