Educating Rita Educating Rita Educating Rita is a stage comedy by British playwright Willy Russell. It is a play for two actors set entirely in the office of an Open University lecturer. Commissioned by the Royal Shakespeare Company, "Educating Rita" premièred at The Warehouse, London, in June 1980 starring Julie Walters and Mark Kingston. The play was directed by Mike Ockrent. The plays follows the relationship between a 26-year-old Liverpudlian working class hairdresser and Frank, a middle-aged university lecturer, during the course of a year. In the play Frank has no surname, but when the film was made he became Dr. Frank
Willy Russell Valentine" and "Educating Rita" became successful feature films with Michael Caine, Julie Walters and Pauline Collins all winning Oscar nominations for their respective roles, as did Russell for his "Educating Rita" screenplay. Russell's other worldwide theatrical success has been "Blood Brothers", 'a Liverpudlian folk opera' about a pair of twins separated at birth and brought up in completely different environments. "Blood Brothers" won the Laurence Olivier Award for Best New Musical in 1983 and its 1987 revival saw over 10,000 consecutive performances during its 24-year West End run. Simultaneously, UK touring and international productions (including a two-year run on Broadway)