Willy Russell

Written specifically for GCSE students by academics in the field, the Methuen Drama GCSE Student Editions provide in-depth explanatory material alongside the play texts frequently studied at Key Stage 4. Whether for use in the classroom or independent study, these editions offer a fully comprehensive and lightly glossed play text with accompanying notes specifically directed towards readers of this age....

A Liverpudlian West Side Story: twin brothers are separated at birth because their mother cannot afford to keep them both. She gives one of them away to wealthy Mrs Lyons, and they grow up as friends, unaware of their fraternity until the inevitable quarrel unleashes a bloodbath. Willy Russell is less concerned with political tub-thumping than with weaving a close-knit...

Blood Brothers by Willy Russell is a 1983 play with music that tells the compelling story of twin brothers separated at birth because their mother cannot afford to keep them both. One of the twins is given away to the wealthy Mrs Lyons and they grow up as friends, unaware of their true relationship, until an inevitable quarrel unleashes a...

Educating Rita, about a working-class Liverpool girl's hunger for education, is simply a marvellous play, painfully funny and passionately serious; a hilarious social documentary; a fairy-tale with a quizzical, half-happy ending. Sunday Times Educating Rita premiered at the RSC Warehouse, London, in June 1980. Voted Best Comedy of 1980, it was subsequently made into a highly successful film with Michael...

One way of describing Educating Rita would be to say that it is about the meaning of education. Another would be to say that it is about the meaning of life. A third, that it is a cross between Pygmalion and Lucky Jim. A fourth, that it is simply a marvellous play, painfully funny and passionately serious; a hilarious social...

Our Day Out by Willy Russell tells the story of Mrs Kay's 'Progress Class,' who are unleashed for a day's coach trip to Conway Castle in Wales. It is an exuberant celebration of the joys and agonies of growing up and being footloose, fourteen, and free from school. "The skill and zest of the show ...derive from its success in...