Willy Russell’s comedy Educating Rita about two seemingly opposite people opens the autumn programme from the Library Theatre Company at The Lowry in Salford.
The production starts September 26, runs until October 12 and will be directed by Chris Honer, the company’s artistic director.
Hairdresser Rita is determined to change her life while world-weary, alcohol-fuelled lecturer Frank is a self-acknowledged ‘appalling teacher of appalling students’.
Taking the title role is Liverpool-born Gillian Kearney, well known to Manchester theatre audiences from roles in William Shakespeare’s King Lear, Richard Brinsley Sheridan’s The Rivals, and Rod Wooden’s Your Home in the West, all at the Royal Exchange.
Appearing as Frank is Preston-born Philip Bretherton, who is returning to the Library Theatre Company for the first time since appearing in the company’s production of Alan Ayckbourn’s Joking Apart in March 1990 at the Forum Theatre in Wythenshawe, also directed by Chris Honer.