Do you think it is right to call Educating Rita a serious comedy?

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Edward Amoroso                                                                                                            

Do you think it is right to call Educating Rita a serious comedy?

I think that it is right to call Educating Rita a serious comedy as it is a funny play but it also has some very serious points in it.

Right from the beginning, in the first scene of the play, we can tell that it is a funny play. Rita enters the office and she sees a picture. She remarks,

        

“Y’ don’t paint pictures like that so that people can admire the brush strokes, do y’?”

Here Rita is making a joke about the fact that there are naked figures in the picture, but also there is a serious point to this quotation. Rita recognises that it was a religious painting and when it was painted, there were no other naked paintings apart from religious ones.

In the play a lot of subtle comedy is tied in, especially in Rita’s mistakes.

“ I tried to read this thing he wrote called J. Arthur Prufrock.”

Here, Rita mistakes the poem “J. Alfred Prufrock” which is a poem about breaking free, with “J. Arthur”. J. Arthur is completely different, as J. Arthur Rank is used as cockney rhyming slang. With this mistake, she thought the poem was called J. Arthur, as J. Arthur Rank was a film company. She would have seen this many times before, so she presumed the title was the same as the filmmaker.

“Rita – ‘This Forster, honest to God he doesn’t half get on my tits.’

 Frank – ‘You must show me the evidence’”

These quotations here are funny, but yet again have a serious side to them. Frank has started to cut down his excessive drinking habits, so this has made him dirtier.

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“Rita – ‘What’s your name’

 Frank – ‘Frank.’

 Rita – ‘oh. Not after Frank Harris?

 Frank – ‘not after Frank anyone.’

 Rita – ‘Maybe y’ parents named y’ after the quality. Y’ know Frank Ness, Elliot’s                                                                          

             brother.

Frank – ‘What?’

Rita – ‘I’m sorry it was a joke. Y’ know, Frank Ness, Elliot’s brother.’

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