On the phone was Frank's partner, Julia. We also learn he eat's lamb and ratatouille, which tells us he is probably from the middle class. Also we learn that this is the day that the new Open University student is coming to see Frank and that he does not want to go home. "I don't need determination to get me to the pub," is very ironic. The call ends with the new open university student knocking on the door and Frank saying "Go pop your head in the oven," which is very ironic because a poet's wife did commit suicide by putting her head in an oven and Frank was a poet.
Frank shouts, "come in" but the Open University student can't open the door, which is symbolic that Frank doesn’t doesn’t care about anything. Finally the Open University student is able to open the jammed door and enter Frank's study, where we find that the student is Rita. After the first words that come out of her mouth her language contrasts with that of Frank's Standard English, while Rita's language is very much non-standard with lots of taboo words. This is shown when Frank finds out Rita's real name is Susan, but changed it to Rita after Rita Mae Brown, who wrote “Ruby Fruit Jungle”. Rita says, " It's a brilliant book, you wanna lend it" which is non-standard, standard English would be 'Do you want to borrow it'. Examples of Rita’s taboo language are when she is looking at a picture, "That's a nice picture isn't it"..."very erotic"..."nice tits". Tits used to be considered to be taboo, but not so much now, this is because bodily parts were not mentioned in conversation or if they were it was very rude.
The beginning ends with Frank trying to persuade Rita to have a different lecturer, one who is willing to teach her, But Rita refuses, because, she likes Frank. Rita likes Frank because she says he is a mad piss artist, who wants to throw his students out of the window. Rita leaves and the beginning ends.
It is very dramatically effective with the dramatic device (the telephone) and with one language spoken in two very different ways is very contrasting, also very effective.
The end is very good when frank goes again to pull the whiskey out of the shelf and rita stops him showing that rita really cares about him
