Educating Rita reprised her radio and Menier Chocolate Factory performance as Rita, and Frank was played by renowned actor Tim Pigott-Smith. Like the Willy Russell season at the Menier Chocolate Factory, the production ran in repertory alongside "Shirley Valentine" starring Meera Syal. A UK tour played in 2012, starring Claire Sweeney and Matthew Kelly as Rita and Frank respectively. A 35th anniversary production was staged at Liverpool Playhouse from 6 February to 7 March 2015, starring Leanne Best as Rita and Con O'Neill as Frank, directed by Gemma Bodinetz. The same year the Chichester Festival staged a production with Lenny Henry and
Andrea Dunbar Andrea Dunbar Andrea Dunbar (22 May 1961 – 20 December 1990) was a British playwright. She wrote "The Arbor" (1980) and "Rita, Sue and Bob Too" (1982), an autobiographical drama about the sexual adventures of teenage girls living in a run-down part of Bradford, West Yorkshire. She wrote most of the adaptation for the film "Rita, Sue and Bob Too" (1987). The "Mail on Sunday" described Dunbar as "a genius straight from the slums". Dunbar grew up on Brafferton Arbor on the Buttershaw council estate in Bradford with seven brothers and sisters. Both her parents had worked in the textile