![]() Go down that route.’”īut the only person Russell really wanted for the starring role was Walters, who he got to know when she was performing theatre in Liverpool. “A more cynical and a more commercially minded human being than myself might have said, ‘What a great idea. “And Paul Newman at the time hadn’t long finished making Butch Cassidy and The Sting. “So it wasn’t as bizarre as it might have sounded. She’s a terrific actress, and she comes from the only really white American equivalent of working-class Britain. He adds: “Actually that would have been brilliant casting, for a movie set in America. “But if it had gone down that route, then the film would have had to have been relocated to the States.” “When the film was originally in the hands of the Americans, they wanted Paul Newman and Dolly Parton,” he says. But that wasn’t the original idea, admits Russell. It was a huge success and led to the movie, where she played opposite Michael Caine as her English professor. ![]() Walters starred in the production, about a young, working-class, Liverpool hairdresser, who decides to study English Literature at the Open University. The Royal Shakespeare Company commissioned and put on the original stage version in 1980. Russell, from Liverpool, is visiting Stratford-upon-Avon this month to re-live the story of how Educating Rita first made it to the theatre. Since then she hasn’t looked back, taking starring roles in Billy Elliot, Mamma Mia and the Harry Potter series.īut Willy Russell, who wrote Educating Rita, has revealed US movie bigwigs wanted Dolly Parton for the lead. Her performance bagged an Oscar nomination. Walters came to prominence in the 1983 smash hit movie, Educating Rita. Yet to become an international movie star the Smethwick-born actress had to overcome two of the most intimidating obstacles in showbiz. He knows how to add delicacy when it’s needed most.JULIE Walters is one of the most successful performers to have emerged from the West Midlands. Speaking of tinkling, John Swihart’s incidental music, linking the many scenes with a catchy rhythm and pleasant melody, is said to be his first for the stage. The problem’s not her (mostly authentic) Liverpudlian accent or his (mostly appropriate) disengagement it’s simply their engaging in largely unrelieved shouting for well over two hours. Johnson, a big droopy bear of a man, and Mozo, all bucktoothed gamine smile and glowing eyes, are physically well suited to their roles. Frank’s lesson on what Forster meant in “Howards End” by “only connect” is ironic here, because these characters’ connections are frayed, if present at all amidst all the overt, unmodulated conflict. Watson’s approach flattens out the careful exploration of strangers, their gradual discovery of each other and the ebb and flow of accommodation. From the moment she barges onto Victoria Profitt’s bibliophile’s dream set, Rebecca Mozo’s Rita attacks her adult ed tutor with unrelieved sarcasm at top volume, Frank (Bjorn Johnson) returning sneer for sneer, bellow for bellow.Įach seems to have chosen “put upon” as the dominant character trait, while possessing a limited repertoire of gestures with which we become familiar long before scene two. This is gossamer stuff, to which helmer Cameron Watson applies all the finesse of Rock ‘Em Sock ‘Em Robots. Forster, thesps can admit only a smidgen of romantic interest while offering discreet peeks into characters’ personal lives: her abusive husband and sense of worthlessness his drunkenness and creative disappointments. ![]() Building intimacy in the course of weekly arguments over Ibsen, Blake and E.M. ![]()
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