The Peterborough Evening Telegraph
Rita, Sue and Bob Too
Royal and Derngate, Northampton, October 31-Nov 4
The seminal 1982 play follows two teenage friends who embark on an affair with a married man. Rita will be played by
Taj Atwal, who was widely acclaimed for her performance in East is East in the West End, and who starred in Educating Rita for Hull Truck. She is also known from Stella on Sky1 TV, and Kay Mellors’ In The Club on BBC1. Atwal’s co-star from In The Club, Gemma Dobson, will make her professional stage debut as Sue. Bob will be played by James Atherton, who played Will Savage in Hollyoaks for five years, as well as Jamie Bowman in Coronation Street.
In the play, best friends Rita and Sue get a lift home from married Bob after babysitting his kids. When he takes the scenic route and offers them a bit of fun, the three start a fling they each think they control. Andrea Dunbar wrote this, her second, semiautobiographical play in 1982 when she was
19. It’s a vivid portrait of girls caught between brutal childhood and an unpromising future, hungry for adult adventure. Told with wicked humour, startling insight and a great ear for dialogue, Rita Sue and Bob Too also became a muchloved cult film, restored and re-released this year by the BFI.