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2 February 2026
It takes a brave amateur dramatics group to take on any two-hander. You need two actors that can hold an audience’s attention for around two hours, a director that can help bring the characters to life and keep the pace up and a design team that can ensure the piece is visually interesting. Maskers Theatre more than ticks all of these boxes and their bravery pays off with a superb rendition of Willy Russell’s classic Educating Rita; you’d struggle to see a better local play this year, I’d expect.
Russell’s piece about a drunken, cynical professor of literature and his working class student seeking inner growth can be described as a “classic” on several levels; it was an instant classic upon its release in 1980, launching the career of Julie Walters and spawning a famous film adaptation with Ms Walters and Michael Caine. With 40+ years elapsing since Russell put pen to paper, the play might now be considered a classic period piece, with biting commentary on the class system and higher education in the early 80’s. It’s a fascinating and engaging play on multiple levels and one all avid theatregoers should seek to watch at least once.
In the eponymous role of Rita, Tash Priddle puts in a delightfully endearing performance. Embarking on an Open University course in literature, Rita hopes to finally understand a world of books that presently escapes her. But there’s more going on than that; Rita is stuck in a hum-drum marriage with controlling Denny (who reacts to Rita’s interest in further education as if she’s cheating on him) and is fed up of her working class malaise, wanting to throw herself into her course and learn as much as she can, even while loathing some of the pompous reading material she encounters, finding it condescending of the working class she’s trying to escape. Tash brings a delightful quirkiness to the role; wide-eyed and optimistic, yet streetwise and giving her professor as good as she gets; Tash simply excels.
Frank, the Professor, is one of the great roles in English theatre, and Ruben Sanchez-Garcia more than rises to the occasion. A brilliant but self-deprecating poet who can’t handle praise; a divorcee who’d rather be at the pub than enjoy time with his new partner; a functioning alcoholic who hides his bottles behind books on the shelf, keeping his job as long as he “doesn’t display the signs” of his addiction; Ruben brings all these character traits to life wonderfully in a performance that is truly captivating and, I expect, would impress even the author himself. Perhaps Ruben’s hardest job is conveying the loss Frank feels as Rita “outgrows” him, as she becomes more educated, masters critical analysis and develops a wider circle of bohemian friends. Ruben displays the anger and sadness associated with this loss of control superbly without overplaying it, and his tour-de-force in playing drunk is one of the highlights of the evening.
While written to be set in Russell’s native Liverpool, Maskers chose to adapt some of the dialogue to suggest a Southampton locale; this was a good choice, doing no damage to the piece at all and helping further engage the highly appreciative first night audience. The intimate Maskers studio, seating approximately 50, created an almost claustrophobic atmosphere where we could totally absorb ourselves in Frank and Rita’s shared world. The simple office set was well dressed with an assortment of books, ornaments, drinking paraphernalia and raunchy painting (or is it?), with the width between each character’s desk allowing a vast acting space, which director, Jenni Prior, and actors made excellent use of.
Technical aspects supported the play suitably; the lack of any background music during the many scene changes seemed a bold but effective choice, as the silence allowed one to reflect on the scene they’d just watched, as opposed to being distracted by period tunes from the 80’s, which must have been a tempting choice for the company, but was well avoided. Costuming was impressive, especially in depicting Rita’s embracing her transition to middle class as the play progressed.
Maskers’ production of Educating Rita takes Frank’s derisory words about amateur theatre and makes him eat them and then some; I highly recommend it and, if you can catch one of the remaining five performances (it runs until Saturday 7th February), you’ll be, as Rita might say, dead impressed.
- John Sivewright
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