Review – Educating Rita, Menier Chocolate Factory

Saturday evening.

Philly-no-mates had nothing booked in the diary. What to do? Take up an impromptu offer (presumably no one else being available) to revisit the Menier Chocolate Factory‘s Educating Rita now starring Claire Sweeney as the titular heroine or stay in on his tod and flick restlessly between TV ‘talent’ shows.

Sweeney or tod?

Phil dithered. He doesn’t normally like visiting the theatre on a Saturday evening* and whilst the decision was not exactly on a par with Sophie’s Choice he weighed up the options fastidiously. The Whingers had enjoyed it enormously two years ago; surely only disappointment would ensue.

Review – Educating Rita, Menier Chocolate Factory

Who is she? Who is she? This whispered question echoed around the auditorium as the audience filed out of the Sunday matinee preview of Educating Rita, part of the Willy Russell season at the Menier Chocolate Factory.

“She” is Laura Dos Santos. Previous theatre credits include: We Will Be Gone (Camden People’s Theatre), Look Back In Anger (Jermyn Street), Stags And Hens (Royal Court Liverpool), On The Middle Day (Old Vic), In Your Hands (New End Theatre) and The Morris (Liverpool Everyman)*.

No, we were none the wiser either but it’s extremely unlikely anyone will be asking “Who is she?” for long. For Miss Dos Santos has seized the part of Rita from our memory of Julie Walters’ grasp and inhabited it so completely and confidently and with such comic and dramatic aplomb that no-one in the auditorium could do much more than ask to each other blankly “Who is she?” in disbelief that she isn’t already a household name.