Rita, Sue and #MeToo? It’s enough to make a la-di-dah liberal faint . . .
Rita, Sue And Bob Too (Royal Court) Verdict: Should never have been banned RAW, explicit and funny, Andrea Dunbar’s 1982 play Rita, Sue And Bob Too depicts attitudes to sex on a Bradford sink estate in the early Thatcher years. Politically correct and genteel, it is not.
Schoolgirls Rita and Sue, aged 15, are seduced by Bob, who is 27 and lives in a smarter part of town. Rita and Sue have been babysitting for Bob and his wife. He has his wicked way with them in the front of his car (reclining seats — v. posh) when driving them both home.
Rather than run to the police or social services, the minxy girls begin an affair with Bob. Before the end of the play it is almost they, not Bob, who are the sexual predators.
This touring production has a few faults and is not a patch on the 1987 film. But I give it four stars owing to the context of its brief run at the Royal Court.
The Court was once regarded as London’s leading outlet of avant-garde plays. A few weeks ago, its politically ambitious artistic director, Vicky Featherstone, announced that she was cancelling the show because it ‘conflicted’ with the feminist stance she took after the sexual harassment scandals in Hollywood and elsewhere.
Another factor in the decision to bin the production was an allegation that theatre grandee (and former Court boss) Max Stafford- Clark, originally a codirector of this show, had behaved improperly to women.
Only after a public outcry against her ban did Ms Featherstone change her mind and graciously allow the play to be seen.
You can see why la- di- dah liberals would recoil from the late Dunbar’s work. She does not romanticise poverty. Rita (Taj Atwal) and Sue (Gemma Dobson) are no angels. Bob (James Atherton, wearing a very odd mullet hairdo) is not a complete villain.
What, no finger-wagging? No use of the word ‘inappropriate’? No comeuppance for randy Bob after he beds minors? No wonder Ms Featherstone got the hump, if we are still allowed to use that expression.
Like TV’s Shameless, this play catches something of the feral chaos of life at the bottom. It may be brutal but, when compared with the taut anguish of today’s metropolitan gentry, it also has a certain exuberance and freedom.
Vicky Featherstone should put her political ambitions second to the cause of drama. She may find it a more reliable guide to the ways of the world.