Educating Rita general overview. Russell depicts the initial struggles that people who have not had a private school start to the education system. He uses both stagecraft and dialogue to present the changes that a person such as he and Rita can face.
Educating Rita Coursework Liverpool, in the 1980's was hit by a financial low point; with high rates of unemployment and thousands fleeing the city for better job and life prospects elsewhere. This coupled with rising tuition fees for universities, made it harder for people in the city to try and better themselves, especially the younger generation. Open universities as opposed to the traditional redbrick's, offered a cheap course - that you could study in your free time, mostly from home but still get a degree at the end of studying. They did not discriminate class or grades, meaning that anyone can access the courses they have to offer, without taking the traditional route of an A-level. Assisting people to Strive towards a better career and future. The playwright, Willy Russell seems to be a part of this generation in Liverpool, wanting to get ahead but with financial times being hard, he felt the push. He was a hairdresser, and with one O-level he saw that with the financial crisis of the time, it would be hard to make ends meet, whilst he was still cutting hair. Whereas, if he took an Open University course, that did not care about his difficult start to life - he would be able to get his degree and hopefully better himself. Russell also saw, that in his traditional city, that women were not given the opportunities and equal rights, that most women in society have access
How far do you consider Frank to be the comic focus of the play "Educating Rita"?
How far do you consider Frank to be the comic focus of the play? To a substantial degree Frank is the comic focus of the play, Willy Russell presents him at the start with a fundamental sense of humour essential to the comic themes of the play, his character is reinforced throughout the play and the contrast between Frank and Rita exploits a class difference which shows the real purpose of the humour. He is then denoted as an allegorical function to expose the class system, Russell’s true comic focus. The play opens with a comical monologue from Frank; he is on the phone with Julia, an ex-student with whom he lives, and although there is an underlying sense of despondency in this scene when looking further into his character, the comedy is obvious and conceals the truth of Frank’s tragic life. This is portrayed through his sarcasm in his dispute over the ‘ratatouille’, and the way in which he comments on his own drinking problem after Julia’s remark. This is comical due to the reality that they’re arguing over something so insignificant and yet become so aggravated. This ‘sugarcoating’ holds true comic applicability as comedy can be strongly linked with tragedy as the credibility of the characters holds true purpose to the audience and therefore feel an affinity to such characters which may be of great importance to Russell when choosing and depicting a