Educatibg Rita at the Playhouse Theatre, Liverpool. Photograph by Stephen Vaughan.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * * *

Cast: Leanne Best, Con O’Neill.

The further we move away from a time in history, the more it seems to resonate with us in the present. In 1979 the social climate of the country changed, events and news from around the world started to mould Britain in a way not seen since the start of the Second World War and the pace of life altered, stagnation, alienation and guilt in some quarters, not enough in others, became a new breeding ground to hit people with a terrifying new stick with. Yet somehow, as if in rebellion to this flowering want, great music started to reflect the times once more and the mood of education was to be heard in many a great rock and pop song and into this world Willy Russell’s Educating Rita was born.

Everybody knows a Rita, its impossible not to know someone who doesn’t feel anything for the usual conversation that they have grown up being part of and who wants to change their perception on life, someone who yearns to understand; who faces ridicule and scorn for daring to believe in something new, even years after leaving the education system. Conversely, many people might know a Frank, that singular person who can inspire greatness, a flowering of potential even in the most unlikely of knotted weeds, but for whom themselves the world has become jaded, torn, worse still, beige and unexciting. Together though, as proved once again in Willy Russell’s wonderful play, they can bring out the good in each other, they can breathe different air.

In Con O’Neill and Leanne Best, the Playhouse Theatre bulged in the immensity of two actors who have become part of the fabric of Liverpool’s theatre world and Liverpool life. As with a solo production, in a two hander there is no hiding place for the performer who sits in the shadows, it requires great personal adherence to the job at hand. Like a Wimbledon final, its more memorable if the players presented before the crowd are evenly matched and who give everything, blood, sweat and tears, to the audience.  In Ms. Best and Mr O’Neill, this was simply as perfect as an audience could dream for, a play that hits home time and time again with its themes and in Con O’Neill was born to play the disillusioned tutor.

For Gemma Bodinetz, once again the production spells out what a boon to the city of Liverpool this talented woman is. As a director she is perhaps arguably one of the most eagerly looked forward to people who can sell a production on her name alone, let alone a superb cast or indeed a thunderbolt of a play. In Educating Rita, that dedication to the play is everywhere; it seeps through the cranny of every word and the nook of every apostrophe and bursts into life right before the audience’s eyes. Following on from such plays as the Everyman Theatre’s opening production of 2014, Twelfth Night and the likes of Juno and the Paycock, A Streetcar Named Desire and the fabulously interpreted trilogy of plays penned by poet Roger McGough including The Misanthrope, Gemma Bodinetz warms the heart with Willy Russell’s auspicious 1979 play.

Educating Rita is as pertinent and significant today as it was in 1979. The thought of more mature student facing up to the fact that they want to escape the route laid out before them and at times feeling so overwhelmed by the enormity of it all, is just as important to the fabric of society as those with youth on their side and whose minds are more used to the system.

Educating Rita still hits home, that education is the most important aspect to a person’s growth, no matter the form it comes in.

Ian D. Hall