Tag Archives: Willy Russell

Writer: Willy Russell Director: Bill Kenwright and Bob Tomson Reviewer: Dan English It is an emotional tour de force at the Orchard Theatre as Blood Brothers reaches Dartford as part of its current UK tour. Caught up among the class struggles of 1960s Liverpool, Mrs Johnstone finds herself caught in an impossible situation, carrying twins with little money or security ...

Book, Music and Lyrics: Willy Russell Directors: Bob Thomson and Bill Kenwright Reviewer: Hannah Powell With our current political climate becoming heated by Brexit and an ever-growing divide between those at the top and those living on the bread line, now seems the perfect time to revive such a play that displays what those in desperate need can be forced ...

Writer: Willy Russell Director: Bob Thomson & Bill Kenwright Reviwer: Alisha McCracken Willy Russell’s Blood Brothers tells the tale of twins separated at birth with strong themes of class and superstition. The superstitious Mrs. Johnson (Lyn Paul) is a single mother to seven children with another on the way, however, she struggles to afford to feed the children she already has. ...

Writer: Willy Russell Director: Max Roberts Set and Costumes: Patrick Connellan Lighting Design: Drummond Orr Sound Design: David Flynn Reviewer: Janet Jepson Willy Russell is rightly famous for his strong female characters, usually arising from his tough working-class upbringing in Liverpool in the fifties. Born to a father who worked in a factory and a mother who went from nursing ...

Writer: Willy Russell Director: Max Roberts Designer: Patrick Connellan Reviewer: Ron Simpson Educating Rita, now nearly 40 years old, is one of those plays that carries its production in its DNA. The director has few decisions about style, setting and characterization to make, only the difficult problem of how to convey warmly, convincingly and often humorously a changing relationship in ...

Writer: Willy Russell Director: Max Roberts Reviewer: Selwyn Knight Frank is a bitter failed poet and university lecturer. His life is spiralling downwards as his drinking threatens to get out of control. Indeed, in order to finance his drinking, he says, he signs up as a tutor with the Open University and is allocated Susan – or Rita as she ...

Writer: Willy Russell Director: Max Roberts Reviewer: Lu Greer It has been almost forty years since Willy Russell released Educating Rita, and the world was introduced to Rita a working-class Liverpudlian and Frank her alcoholic Open University tutor. The story of Rita, sick of the banal chit chat of the salon she works in enrolling on a literature course only ...

Writer: Willy Russell   Director: Max Roberts   Reviewer: Jay Nuttall Willy Russell’s 1980 stage play might well be remembered fondly by the nation when adapted into film in 1983 starring Michael Caine and Julie Walters, but this new touring production proves that Educating Rita has stood the test of time for the last forty years and will continue to ...