During the 1990s and 2000s, Willy Russell produced his first album, Hoovering the Moon, and performed on multiple tours, including Words on the Run with Merseybeat poets Adrian Henri, Brian Patten, Roger McGough, as well as the musician Andy Roberts and The Singing Playwrights with writer Tim Firth. He also wrote the screenplay for the film Dancin’ Thru The Dark, an adaptation of his play Stags and Hens and a novel entitled The Wrong Boy, to wide critical acclaim. William "Willy" Russell (born 23 August 1946) is an English dramatist, lyricist and composer. His best known works are Educating Rita, Shirley Valentine, Blood Brothers and Our Day Out. From 26 March to 8 May 2010, as part of the Willy Russell season at the Menier Chocolate Factory, Laura Dos Santos reprised her radio performance on stage as Rita alongside Larry Lamb as Frank. This was the production's first London West End revival. This production transferred to the Trafalgar Studios in London's West End from 8 July to 30 October 2010, produced by Sonia Friedman. Laura Dos Santos reprised her radio and Menier Chocolate Factory performance as Rita, and Frank was played by renowned actor Tim Pigott-Smith. Like the Willy Russell season at the Menier Chocolate Factory, the production ran in repertory alongside Shirley Valentine starring Meera Syal. A UK tour played in 2012, starring Claire Sweeney and Matthew Kelly as Rita and Frank respectively.

Russell has written songs since the early 1960s, and has written the music to most of his plays and musicals. He also co-wrote "The Show", the theme song to the 1985 ITV drama series Connie, which became a top 30 hit for vocalist Rebecca Storm. His first album, Hoovering the Moon, was released in 2003.I cant think of any figure in my life who influenced Frank. He’s a sort of straight-out-of-the-air creation but he does share again the thing that a number of characters have in the plays of being, to my mind, a real teacher, ie he provides the space and the stimulus in which somebody can securely learn and that’s what he does for Rita. And the other thing is, don’t forget that working in Frank’s voice, I was able to write a lot of things in a certain way that I couldn’t perhaps write in other idioms, in other accents. There are certain ways of thinking that an ‘educated’ man will have, that I was able to deal with for the first time in a play, most of which I share. In a way you can see Rita and Frank as two sides of Willy Russell” Susan (who initially calls herself Rita), dissatisfied with the routine of her work and social life, seeks inner growth by signing up for and attending an Open University course in English Literature. The play opens as 'Rita' meets her tutor, Frank, for the first time. Frank is a middle-aged, alcoholic career academic who has taken on the tutorship to pay for his drink. The two have an immediate and profound effect on one another; Frank is impressed by Susan's verve and earnestness and is forced to re-examine his attitudes and position in life; Susan finds Frank's tutelage opens doors to a bohemian lifestyle and a new self-confidence. However, Frank's bitterness and cynicism return as he notices Susan beginning to adopt the pretensions of the university culture he despises. Susan becomes disillusioned by a friend's attempted suicide and realises that her new social niche is rife with the same dishonesty and superficiality she had previously sought to escape. The play ends as Frank, sent to Australia on a sabbatical, welcomes the possibilities of the change. Alongside further stage works, One for the Road (1976) [9] and Stags and Hens (1978), Russell was a screenwriter with television films, Death of A Young Young Man (1975, BBC1), [10] Daughters of Albion (1979), [11] Our Day Out (1977) [12] and the five-part serial One Summer (1983). [13] i'm busy findin' meself, let alone findin' someone else. i don't want anyone else. i've begun to find me - an' it's great y'know, it is frank. it might sound selfish but all i want for the time bein' is inside of me. i certainly don't wanna be rushin' off with some feller, cos the first thing i'll have to do is forget about meself for the sake of him." the Laurence Olivier Award for Best New Comedy for Educating Rita (1980) and for Shirley Valentine (1988)

Rita asks Frank if he is married, and he says that he was once. As they continue their lessons, Franks world-weariness begins to show, and he is more down than up. He says that he wouldn’t hide so much from his girlfriend if she were more like Rita. Rita doesn’t take these comments seriously. Instead, she laughs them off. Levin, Angela. "Willy Russell: 'I want to talk about things that matter'", Daily Telegraph, 15 October 2012; accessed 15 October 2014.Rita or Susan (she decides to change her name to Rita) White, is a northern girl of 26 who wants to be clever, well read and intellectual. She is married to Denny who wants a baby with her but she doesn’t feel ready as she wants to discover herself. My favorite thing about the whole play is, by far, the character of Rita. She is so loveable and endearing, and by the end I felt truly proud of her and her character development. She is determined, unapologetic, self-aware, and she almost never falls prey to the idea of settling for the life she is expected to lead. It never fails to amaze me how playwrights manage to create such well-rounded characters just through the use of dialogue.

In 2000, Russell published his first novel, The Wrong Boy. In epistolary form, main character Raymond Marks, a 19-year old from Manchester, tells the story of his life in letters to his hero Morrissey.

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She writes an essay on her favorite book, but Frank criticizes it saying that it was too subjective. He wants her to produce real criticism, but this is difficult for her to do. She read a Forster book that Frank mentioned but couldn’t get into it because Forster mentioned that he hated poor people. Frank is amused by her feelings. Indeed, Rita begins the relationship from a position of weakness, but as the play progresses and she finds her strengths and confidence – and we discover Frank to be a failed poet who relies upon the bottle to get him through his days – it’s Rita who holds the power position. She becomes his muse. RITA Yeh. An' it might be worthless in the end. But I had a choice. I chose, me. Because of what you'd given me I had a

An eight-strong cast brings a boisterous energy to the series of increasingly frenetic situations of mistaken identity set off by the arrival in Ephesus of Antipholus and his servant, Dromio. Unknown to them – or to anyone else – the city is home to each of their long-lost, identical siblings, also master and servant and also called Antipholus and Dromio. Making no pretence at a fourth wall, the performers share everything directly with the happily involved spectators, only concealing, until the final scene, the secret of the uncanny resemblances between the twin-pair actors. Great fun. Rita continues spending time with her new group of friends, including a man called Tiger, of whom Frank is jealous. She also stops working at the hair salon, instead taking on a waitressing job at a bistro. Frank, for his part, starts drinking more than normal, feeling like Rita doesn’t want to study with him. She points out that she would probably enjoy coming to his tutorials more if he wasn’t always drinking so much, and this sparks an argument, at the end of which Frank thrusts a pile of his own poetry into her arms and tells her to write an essay about his work. At college, he began writing drama and, in 1972, took a programme of two one-act plays to the Edinburgh Festival Fringe, where they were seen by writer John McGrath, who recommended Russell to the Liverpool Everyman, which commissioned the adaptation, When The Reds…, Russell's first professional work for theatre. [2] Career [ edit ] An' that's the big moment that one, that's the point when y' have to decide whether it's gonna be another change of dress or a change in yourself. An' it's really temptin' to go out an' get another dress y' know, it is. Cos it's easy, it doesn't cost anythin', it doesn't upset anyone around y'. Like cos they don't want y' to change. Lewis Gilbert says it was difficult to raise finance for the film. "Columbia wanted me to cast Dolly Parton as Rita". [5] Julie Walters, in her feature film debut, reprised her role from the stage production.

Russell wrote and composed Blood Brothers, which premiered in Liverpool. The play has been in continuous production in the UK since 1987. Likewise, Russell’s Shirley Valentine, which premiered at the Everyman Theatre, transferred to the West End and was adapted for film, starring Pauline Collins. Willy Russell wrote the screenplay and music. Willy Russell's twist on Pygmalion still works as well as it ever did on stage, as this worthwhile and entertaining production shows, so surely the time is ripe for some more revivals from the Russell canon other than the slightly tired touring production of Blood Brothers. Willy Russell". queens-theatre.co.uk. 2011. Archived from the original on 16 July 2011 . Retrieved 22 July 2011.