Willy Russell Season - Menier Chocolate Factory
Preview by Lizzie Guilfoyle
AS WELL AS Paradise Found and Aspects of Love, the Menier Chocolate Factory’s Spring/Summer 2010 programme includes the first major London revivals of Willy Russell’s award-winning Educating Rita and Shirley Valentine.
Under the banner Willy Russell Season, the two well-known works will run in repertoire from March 26 to May 8, 2010.
Educating Rita
Much to the dismay of her husband Denny, Rita, a young, brash hairdresser, has recently discovered a passion for English literature and enrols with the Open University. Her fresh, unschooled reaction to the classics challenges the attitudes of the University and her lecturer Frank who begins to question his own understanding of his work and himself.
Jeremy Sams directs Larry Lamb and Laura Dos Santos.
Although Larry Lamb is best known for his roles in EastEnders (as Archie Mitchell) and Gavin and Stacey (as Mick), his other screen credits include Midsomer Murders, Kavanagh QC, Casualty, Taggart, A Touch of Frost and Our Friends in the North (TV); Underworld and Superman (film).
On stage, he has appeared in Arthur Miller’s The Price and Sam Shepard’s Fool for Love (Apollo Theatre); The Five Wives of Maurice Pinder (National Theatre); Hamlet and The Prisoner’s Dilemma (Royal Shakespeare Company); Art (Wyndham’s Theatre); Nine (Donmar Warehouse); Greenland (Royal Court) and The Lulu Plays (Almeida Theatre).
Laura Dos Santos has most recently starred opposite Bill Nighy in the BBC Radio 4 adaptation of Educating Rita, broadcast last Christmas. Her theatre credits include We Will Be Gone (Camden Peoples Theatre); Look Back In Anger (Jermyn Street Theatre); Stags and Hens (Royal Court Liverpool); On The Middle Day (Old Vic); In Your Hands (New End Theatre) and The Morris (Liverpool Everyman).
On television, she has appeared in Bad Girls, Fingersmith, Innocent Party and The Bill.
Jeremy Sams‘ directing credits include The King and I (Royal Albert Hall); The Sound of Music (Palladium and UK tour); Donkey’s Years (Comedy Theatre); Little Britain (UK tour); Michael Frayn’s Noises Off and Marat/Sade (National Theatre) and Spend Spend Spend (Piccadilly Theatre and national tour).
Educating Rita was originally commissioned by the Royal Shakespeare Company. In 1980, it transferred to the West End and in 1983 it was made into a film starring Julie Walters and Michael Caine. In total, it won an Olivier Award for Best Comedy and received Oscar, Golden Globe and BAFTA Award nominations.
Shirley Valentine
Shirley Valentine is a middle-aged Liverpudlian housewife who talks to the wall whilst preparing her husband’s egg and chips. She’s in a rut. What has happened to her life? When her best friend wins an all-expenses-paid holiday for two to Greece she packs her bags, heads for the sun and starts to see the world and herself rather differently….
Glen Walford directs Meera Syal, who is probably best known for her television work in Goodness Gracious Me, The Kumars at Number 42 (for which she received a BAFTA nomination for Best Comedy Performance), Life Isn’t All Ha Ha Hee Hee, My Sister Wife and Beautiful People. Later this year she will appear in the new series of Dr Who playing geologist Nasreen Chowdhury opposite Matt Smith.
On stage, she has appeared in Rafta Rafta, The Vagina Monologues and Serious Money.
While Artistic Director of Liverpool Everyman Theatre, Glen Walford commissioned and directed the world premiere of Shirley Valentine. A former Artistic Director of Ludlow Festival, she has also directed extensively on tour and in London.
The Olivier Award-winning Shirley Valentine received its world stage premiere in Liverpool in 1986. Two years later, it opened in the West End with Simon Callow directing Pauline Collins who went on to star in the 1989 film, which won the Evening Standard Award for Best Screenplay.
Both Educating Rita and Shirley Valentine are designed by Peter McKintosh.