A COMEDY about collision between class and culture comes to the Oldham Coliseum this October.
‘Educating Rita’ by Willy Russell follows the path of Frank, a disillusioned career academic, as he becomes a tutor for the Open University, mainly, to help pay for his prodigious booze habit.
He doesn’t know what to expect, but he certainly wasn’t expecting Rita.
Rita, whose real name is Susan, is a down-to-earth hairdresser looking to make a better life for herself through English Literature. She doesn’t know what she wants, but she knows she wants more than what she has.
Both in and out of the classroom, a relationship develops between them.
Rita falls for the world of bohemian privilege now open to her while Frank falls more than a little in love with Rita’s free spirit.
But as her confidence grows, Frank begins to worry her thirst for improvement might bury the fascinating woman who has brought him back from the brink.
Willy Russell is a multi-award winning writer also known for Blood Brothers, Our Day Out and Shirley Valentine.
Educating Rita won the Laurence Olivier Award for Best New Comedy in 1980, with the film adaptation later winning a BAFTA Award.
Oldham Coliseum’s production is directed by Iqbal Khan, who was last in Oldham for 2012’s Manchester Theatre Award winning ‘Snookered’.
‘Educating Rita’ runs at the Oldham Coliseum from Thursday 15 – Saturday 31 October staring Steven Elliott as Frank alongside Scarlett Brookes as Rita.
Tickets can be booked on 0161 624 2829 or online at www.coliseum.org.uk
Meanwhile, Oldham Coliseum has been nominated for a top accolade in the UK Theatre Awards 2015 Management Categories.
The theatre is competing against Motionhouse and Royal & Derngate in the Renee Stepham Award for Best Presentation of Touring Theatre, for its production The Mist in the Mirror.
The winners will be announced at a glittering ceremony at London’s historic Guildhall on Sunday, October 18.
The full list of nominations for the UK Theatre Awards 2015 is available online at www.uktheatre.org
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