Tag Archives: Willy Russell

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 ...

Writer: Willy Russell Director: Bob Tomson & Bill Kenwright Reviewer: Matt Forrest It’s hard to believe that Blood Brothers just celebrated its 36th year, if anything, it feels older purely because the affection with which it is held. It’s certainly an institution of the theatre circuit and there’s no question why: this is a timeless, heart-breaking tale, of love, class and ...

Writer: Willy Russell Director: Sarah Punshon Reviewer: Katherine Kirwin This well-loved, well-known dramatic comedy takes place entirely within the offices of an English Literature professor, Frank, at an unnamed university as he meets with his first Open University student, Rita,  a Scouse working-class hairdresser seeking to know ‘everything’. Willy Russell’s play is known by many from the 1983 film starring ...

Writer: Willy Russell Director: Glen Walford Reviewer: Barbara Michaels Holiday time is here, and with it come thoughts of jetting off to exotic climes, sunshine and wine, with maybe a touch of romance thrown in.  How timely, then, is a revival of Shirley Valentine, Willy Russell’s enduringly popular 1986 rom-com.  First written as a one-act play, it was presented on ...

Writer: Willy Russell Director: Glen Walford Reviewer: Jo Beggs By 1986, when he wrote Shirley Valentine, Willy Russell had already established himself as one of the country’s most acclaimed comic playwrights. Educating Rita had already, and fairly swiftly, made its way from the stage to the screen and Russell had proven that eighties man could speak with a powerful feminist ...

Writer: Willy Russell Director: Glen Walford Reviewer:  Daljinder Johal How many of us are truly living? This is the principal question of Willy Russell’s Shirley Valentine. The play opens in a warm and bright kitchen with Shirley, a middle-aged Liverpool housewife whose stagnant life in a loveless marriage is disrupted by her best friend’s offer of a trip-for-two to Greece. ...

Writer: Willy Russell Director: Glen Walford Reviewer:  Dave Smith Willy Russell’s ever-popular Shirley Valentine, first seen at the Liverpool Everyman Theatre in 1986, has been given a long overdue and high-profile revival in the form of a major national tour. Original director Glen Walford is again in charge, with Jodie Prenger given the difficult task of carrying the whole thing ...

Writer: Willy Russell Director: Glen Walford Reviewer: Victoria Bawtree Willy Russell’s one-woman play, Shirley Valentine, is enjoying a revival tour, 30 years after its first performance.  Despite being written and set in the 1980s, however, Russell’s monologue is still relevant today. Jodie Prenger plays the 42-year-old housewife from Liverpool who is trapped in a monotonous marriage with only “wall” to keep ...