Educating Rita is

• a stage comedy by British playwright Willy Russell which premièred at The Warehouse, London, in 1980; and

• a film (1983) directed by Lewis Gilbert and starring Julie Walters, Michael Caine, and Maureen Lipman with a screenplay by Russell. The film won the 1983 BAFTA Award for Best Film.

Educating Rita
Walters & Caine
Directed by	Lewis Gilbert
Produced by	Lewis Gilbert
Written by	Willy Russell (also play)
Starring	Michael Caine Julie Walters
Distributed by	Columbia Pictures
Release date	September 14, 1983 Toronto Film Festival
Running time	110 min
Language	English
IMDb profile

Educating Rita is about Susan White (Walters in the movie), a married woman in her twenties working as a hairdresser who signs up for a course at the Open University because she is eager to learn. Susan has changed her name to Rita because Rubyfruit Jungle by Rita Mae Brown is her favourite book. Her husband urges her to have a baby and strongly opposes her decision to go to university. When the play opens Rita meets her tutor for the first time. Dr. Frank Bryant (Caine) is an unsuccessful middle-aged academic with a drinking problem who has no experience in teaching students but who has agreed to tutor OU students because he needs the money to fuel his out of control drinking habits. William Martin Russell (born 23 August 1947) is a British playwright, lyricist and composer. ... For other uses, see London (disambiguation). ... 1980 (MCMLXXX) was a leap year starting on Tuesday. ... 1983 (MCMLXXXIII) was a common year starting on Saturday of the Gregorian calendar. ... Lewis Gilbert (born March 6, 1920) is a British film director born in London, England. ... Julie Walters as Molly Weasley in Harry Potter and the Philosophers Stone Julia Mary Walters (born February 22, 1950) is a British actor of Irish Catholic extraction, mainly associated with comedy and character roles. ... Michael Caine as Alfred Pennyworth in Batman Begins Sir Maurice Joseph Micklewhite, CBE (born 14 March 1933), known professionally as Sir Michael Caine, is an English film actor. ... Maureen Lipman (born May 10, 1946) is a British actress. ... A screenplay or script is a blueprint for producing a motion picture. ... British Academy of Film and Television Arts (BAFTA) award for Best Picture winners: Categories: | ... Download high resolution version (400x620, 94 KB)Video cover File history Legend: (cur) = this is the current file, (del) = delete this old version, (rev) = revert to this old version. ... Lewis Gilbert (born March 6, 1920) is a British film director born in London, England. ... William Martin Russell (born 23 August 1947) is a British playwright, lyricist and composer. ... Michael Caine as Alfred Pennyworth in Batman Begins Sir Maurice Joseph Micklewhite, CBE (born 14 March 1933), known professionally as Sir Michael Caine, is an English film actor. ... Julie Walters as Molly Weasley in Harry Potter and the Philosophers Stone Julia Mary Walters (born February 22, 1950) is a British actor of Irish Catholic extraction, mainly associated with comedy and character roles. ... Columbia Pictures current logo. ... September 14 is the 257th day of the year in the Gregorian calendar (258th in leap years). ... // Events February 11 - The Rolling Stones concert film Lets Spend the Night Together opens in New York Top grossing films North America Star Wars Episode VI: Return of the Jedi Tootsie Trading Places, starring Dan Aykroyd and Eddie Murphy WarGames, starring Matthew Broderick and Ally Sheedy Superman III Flashdance... The Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF) is generally considered to be one of the five top film festivals in the world. ... Open University Logo © Open University The Open University (OU) is a distance learning university which has students all over the UK and accepted its first students in 1971. ... Rubyfruit Jungle is the first novel (1973) by Rita Mae Brown, remarkable for its explicit lesbianism. ... Rita Mae Brown (born November 28, 1944) is a prolific American writer and social activist, notable for novels, poetry, and screenwriting. ... The word drink is primarily a verb, meaning to ingest liquids. ...

The plot is a reworking of the old Pygmalion motif: As time goes by, Frank gradually overcomes his initial repulsion to teach English literature to an utterly uneducated person. Eventually, his rising ambition to turn Rita into a respectable and educated member of society gets the better of him, and when he sees how quickly Rita learns he falls in love with his own creation. Failing to see that Rita is no longer dependent on him, he asks her to spend the rest of her life with him, but Rita -- or rather Susan, as she calls herself now again -- politely refuses. Pygmalion and Galatea (1890) by Jean-Léon Gérôme (1824-1904)]] Pygmalion is a fictional character from the Roman poet Ovid, found in the tenth book of his Metamorphoses. ... The term English literature refers to literature written in the English language, including literature composed in English by writers not necessarily from England; Joseph Conrad was Polish, Robert Burns was Scottish, James Joyce was Irish, Edgar Allan Poe was American, Salman Rushdie is Indian. ...

Educating Rita is a play for two characters and set entirely in Frank's office at the university, whereas the filmed version includes a number of minor characters who are only talked about in the stage play.

Trivia

'Educating Rita' was not primarily a film. It was, in fact a play written by Willy Russell. but was later made into a film which reworked the plot very slightly and introduced several characters who were not primarily intended as onstage characters; such as Denny and Rita's father.

Although the setting for the film is Liverpool, the film was shot in the prestigious Trinity College Dublin. All other scenes were also filmed in Ireland, with "France" in fact being Maynooth, and Dublin Airport also appearing. Liverpool waterfront by night, as seen from the Wirral. ... The College of the Holy and Undivided Trinity of Queen Elizabeth near Dublin or more commonly Trinity College, Dublin (TCD) was founded in 1592 by Queen Elizabeth I, is the only constituent college of the University of Dublin, Irelands oldest university. ... WGS-84 (GPS) Coordinates: 53. ... Dublin Airport (IATA: DUB, ICAO: EIDW), or Aerfort Bhaile Atha Cliath in Irish, is operated by Dublin Airport Authority and is the busiest airport in Ireland. ...

External links

• Educating Rita at the Internet Movie Database