MARIA DUARTE is swept along by the cocky self-belief of a ping-pong hustler in a surprisingly violent drama
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Laughing at, not with, the working class
LYNNE WALSH is left uneasy at the audience response to Rita, Sue and Bob Too
Assured performers: (From left) Gemma Dobson (Sue), Taj Atwal (Rita) and James Atherton (Rob)
[The Other Richard]
STEVE ANDREW recommends a lively and often moving guide to once vibrant spaces that have been abandoned or swept away
GEOFF BOTTOMS appreciates the local touch brought to a production of Dickens’s perennial classic
MARY CONWAY is disappointed by a production whose design and cartoonish acting overwhelms the close scrutiny of characters
SUSAN DARLINGTON enjoys the raucous familiarity of a traditional topsy-turvy pantomime
RON JACOBS introduces the latest novel by the best writer of US working-class fiction writing today
Rita, Sue and Bob Too
Royal Court, London/Touring
CO-PRODUCED by Out of Joint, Bolton Octagon and the Royal Court, this production, controversially cancelled and then reinstated by the London theatre, is an insubstantial version of Rita, Sue and Bob Too.
It’s tough to say that, especially given the acclaim which greeted the teenage Andrea Dunbar’s work. First performed in 1982 and made into a successful film soon afterwards, the play is semi-autobiographical. Dunbar’s life was bleak and she was dead at 29 after time in a women’s refuge and escalating problems with alcohol.
Her depiction of 15-year-old friends and their fling with a morosely married man won plaudits and the media loved Dunbar for a while.
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