![]() University-age young people these days, feels Pigott-Smith, ought to be allowed to go on a similar journey of exploration, free of the pressure to know at the age of 18 exactly what profession you want to go into. Rita, the sassy young working-class heroine who beguiles world-weary tutor Frank with her refreshingly honest approach to English literature, is hungry to learn for learning’s sake, to broaden her life. Though Jeremy Sams’s revival of Educating Rita is set in a non-specific era, there remains an old-fashioned charm to Russell’s 30-year-old play in its emphasis on learning for self-improvement rather than grades. “That in itself tells you it’s another era because everyone has to get 14 A*s now.” “I like the notion of being able to hand something on, because it’s such a weird job” It is stating the obvious to say that education has changed hugely since Educating Rita premiered in 1980 – “the notion of a student having regular one-on-one tutorials with a Doctor!” laughs Pigott-Smith – and even more since the 64-year-old’s own student days, when he “worked his nuts off” to get the two Bs and an E demanded by Bristol University Drama department. The scramble for university places this month seems to confirm his view. Why should everybody be academic? It didn’t seem to me to be demeaning for somebody to learn technical skills, but now it’s as though everybody’s got to have a degree.” What’s happened now is that the notion of apprenticeship has died and actually the old polys used to encourage that, they were for people who weren’t academic. “No, my problem,” he adds, launching into a discourse from his chair in a backstage room at Trafalgar Studios, “is all those polytechnics that were turned into universities by Thatcher just to massage the statistics and you read of people coming out with inadequate learning. “I think it’s a fantastic thing,” Pigott-Smith says of the OU, telling me about an actor friend of his who is in her final year of a course at the distance learning institution “and she’s absolutely loved it in just the way that Rita does.” The topic has arisen because the actor, known to many for 80s serial The Jewel In The Crown, is currently playing English professor and Open University tutor Frank in Willy Russell’s two-hander Educating Rita at Trafalgar Studios. It is appropriate that, shortly before the release of this year’s record-breaking A Level and GCSE results, I should be hearing the persuasive views of Tim Pigott-Smith on the subject of education. Opera credits include: Der Freischutz (Finnish National Opera) Peter Grimes, Cosi fan Tutte (Luzerner Opera) La Cenerentola, Il Barbiere di Siviglia (Garsington) L’Italiana in Algeri (Buxton) Les Pelerins de la Mecque, ZaZa (Wexford).īallet credits include: Bruise Blood (Shobana Jeyasingh Dance Company), Landschaft und Erinnerung (Stuttgart Ballet, Germany) The Protecting Veil (Birmingham Royal Ballet), The Snowman (Seoul, London, Birmingham Rep, Tour).Times have changed since Tim Pigott-Smith, currently playing an alcoholic university professor in Willy Russell’s Educating Rita, was a student himself, he tells Caroline Bishop. ![]() ![]() Ruari has designed for almost all the regional theatres in the United Kingdom including Birmingham Rep, West Yorkshire Playhouse, Northern Stage, Watford Palace, Bristol Old Vic, Nottingham Playhouse, Plymouth Theatre Royal, Liverpool Everyman and Playhouse, Derby Playhouse, Salisbury Playhouse, Theatr Clwyd. (Hampstead Theatre) Henry IV parts I and II (Washington Shakespeare Company, USA) West Side Story, The Sound of Music (Stratford Festival, Canada) Hamlet (Elisnore, Denmark) Oleanna, Educating Rita, Pravda, The Critic, The Real Inspector Hound (Chichester) ![]() Design credits include: Mappa Mundi, Frozen, The Waiting Room, The Red Balloon (National Theatre) Titus Andronicus (Royal Shakespeare Company) Othello The Solid Gold Cadillac (Garrick) A Busy Day (Lyric Theatre) Peggy Sue Got Married (Shaftsbury Theatre) The Snowman (Peacock Theatre) Toyer, Betty and Jane (Arts) The Three Sisters on Hope Street, The Glass Room, Gone to L.A. ![]()
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