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
Woman's film film is the motif of escape. Woman's films allow their respective female protagonists to escape their everyday lives and their socially and sexually prescribed roles. The escape can take the form of a journey to another place such as the USSR in "Letter to Brezhnev" (1985) and Greece in "Shirley Valentine" (1989) or education as in "Educating Rita" (1983) and sexual initiation as in "Wish You Were Here" (1987). The beginnings of the genre can be traced back to D. W. Griffith, whose one- and two-reelers "A Flash of Light" (1910) and "Her Awakening" (1911) feature the trademark narratives of