Willy Russell – författare

The hilarious, bittersweet novel from the playwright behind EDUCATING RITA, SHIRLEY VALENTINE and award-winning musical BLOOD BROTHERS.'Big-hearted, wonderfully funny and engrossing' THE MIRROR'A warm, funny, poignant story. I loved The Wrong Boy - and so will you' SUNDAY TELEGRAPH'A comic masterpiece' BEL MOONEY, MAIL ON SUNDAYDear Morrissey,I'm feeling dead depressed and down. Like a streetlamp without a bulb or a goose at the onset of Christmas time.Anyroad, I thought I'd pen a few lines to someone who'd understand...It's 1991. Raymond Marks is a normal boy, from a normal family, in a normal northern town. Only lately, he's been feeling dead down. His dad left home after falling in love with a five-string banjo. His fun-hating grandma believes she should have married Jean-Paul Sartre: 'I could never read his books, but y' could tell from his picture, there was nothing frivolous about John-Paul Sartre.' Felonious Uncle Jason and Appalling Aunty Paula are lusting after the satellite dish.And so he turns to the one person who'll understand what he's going through: Morrissey. Told through a series of heartfelt letters to the frontman of The Smiths, this is a laugh-out-loud funny, incredibly poignant tale from a character you can't help but love.-------READERS LOVE THE WRONG BOY***** 'The brilliant way this book is written has you laughing helplessly'***** 'How the author gets deep inside the head of this young boy as he grows up is incredible'***** 'Russell's voice is full of humour, laughter and comfort. It's heartwarming rather than heartbreaking and there is plenty to make you smile'***** 'Raymond is a funny and poignant character and made me both laugh, and not just cry, but actually sob''The dialogue - as you might expect from a dramatist - is cracking stuff: a colloquial poetry reminiscent of Roddy Doyle' THE GUARDIAN'Russell delights in his skilful depiction of a child's-eye view' THE LITERARY REVIEW

The extraordinary first novel from the internationally acclaimed playwright.Raymond Marks is a normal boy, from a normal family, in a normal northern town. His Dad left home after falling in love with a five-string banjo; his fun-hating Gran believes she should have married Jean-Paul Sartre: ‘I could never read his books, but y’could tell from his picture, there was nothing frivolous about Jean-Paul Sartre.’ Felonious Uncle Jason and Appalling Aunty Paula are lusting after the satellite dish; frogs are flattened on Failsworth Boulevard; and Sickening Sonia’s being sick in the majestic cathedral of words. Raymond Marks is a normal boy, from a normal family, in a normal northern town. Until, on the banks of the Rochdale Canal, the flytrapping craze begins and, for Raymond and his Mam, nothing is ever quite so normal again.

Blood Brothers tells the tragic tale of twin brothers who are born into a large working-class family, and the consequences of one of them being adopted by a neighbouring middle-class family. This is the original version of the play, initially commissioned for performance by the Merseyside Young People's Theatre Company. This Oxford Playscript is ideal for KS3 and GCSE English and Drama students, perfect for both performance and classroom study.Key Features:-Original version of this modern classic, with 13 speaking parts-Suitable for both KS3 and GCSE study-Includes motivating activities focusing on performance, close text analysis, language and structure, together with varied creative tasks-Insights into the play by the authors and adaptors-Notes on staging, props, and illustrations-Explores themes of class, identity, and fateSuitable for: KS3 and GCSE English and Drama departmentsThemes: class, identity, fate

A collection of popular Willy Russell scripts, including Our Day Out, The Boy with the Transistor Radio, Terraces and I Read the News Today. Our Day Out centres on a chaotic school trip to Wales and highlights the depressing reality that, for the students from Mrs Kay's class, a rare school trip is as much as they can expect. This KS3 Oxford Playscript is ideal for exploring social issues through performance and discussion.Key Features:- Includes multiple plays with 24 speaking parts-Includes motivating activities focusing on performance, close text analysis, language and structure, together with varied creative tasks-Insights into the play by the authors and adaptors-Notes on staging, props, and illustrations-Explores themes of education, opportunity, and working-class life-Supports oracy, empathy, and dramatic interpretationSuitable for: KS3 English and Drama departmentsThemes: education, opportunity, working-class lifeThemes: adventure, loyalty, greed

Shirley Valentine, 42-year-old put-upon mother and housewife, leaves the drudgery of cooking dinner for her husband, packs her bags and heads for the sun. The note on the kitchen table reads "Gone to Greece back in two weeks." "It is a simple and brilliant idea...the profound and perennial point of the comedy is the problem we seem to have contemplating the idea of a woman alone - in a pub, on a beach, in a restaurant. This is what Shirley learns to combat as she unravels her own sexual and social identity. The play is not only funny, it is also moving." (Michael Coveney, Financial Times) One for the Road "starts...with the mid-life hero torn between the security of married life in a dormer bungalow on a northern housing estate and dreams of being a rucksacked super-tramp. Mr Russell writes with knowledgeable venom about a world where Beethoven Underpass leads to Wagner Walkway and where anyone who doesn't join Weight Watchers or the Ramblers Club is regarded as a social deviant." (Francis King, Sunday Telegraph)

Mrs Kay's 'Progress Class' are unleashed for a day's coach trip to Conway Castle in Wales - in an exuberant celebration of the joys and agonies of growing up and being footloose, fourteen and free from school. 'The skill and zest of the show ...derive from its success in following the adult argument through while preserving all the fun of a story mainly played by children ...I have rarely seen a show that combined such warmth and such bleakness.' The Times This edition contains the music to the play.

Breezeblock Park is set on a northern council estate and takes a look at the suffocating effect of possessions and possessiveness: "Trenchantly observed...hilarious, upsetting and somewhat seditious." (Variety); Our Day Out is about a school coach trip, an exuberant celebration of the joys and agonies of growing up - "a Dickensian fairytale...I have rarely seen a show that combined such warmth and such bleakness."(The Times); Stags and Hens "takes place in the gents and Ladies loos of a tacky Liverpool club, where Dave and Linda have decided, unbeknownst to each other to hold their stag and hen parties...a bleakly funny and perceptive study of working-class misogyny, puritanism and waste" (Guardian); Educating Rita: "one way of describing Educating Rita would be to say that it was about the meaning of education...another would be to say that it was about the meaning of life. A third, that it is a cross between Pygmalion and Lucky Jim. A fourth, that it is simply a marvellous play, painfully funny and passionately serious: a hilarious social documentary; a fairy-tale with a quizzical, half-happy ending." (Sunday Times)

A Liverpudlian West Side Story: twin brothers are separated at birth because their mother cannot afford to keep them both. She gives one of them away to wealthy Mrs Lyons and they grow up as friends in ignorance of their fraternity until the inevitable quarrel unleashes a blood-bath. 'Willy Russell is less concerned with political tub-thumping than with weaving a close-knit story about the working of fate and destiny ... it carries one along with it in almost unreserved enjoyment" GuardianOne of the longest-running and most successful ever West End musicals, Blood Brothers premiered at the Liverpool Playhouse in January 1983.

'Stags and Hens takes place in the Gents and Ladies loos of a tacky Liverpool club, where Dave and Linda have decided, unbeknownst to each other, to hold their stag and hen parties ...a bleakly funny and perceptive study of working-class misogyny, puritanism and waste' Guardian 'Combines comedy with acrid truth in the style Willy Russell has made unmistakably his own ...and hits off brilliantly the herd instinct driving both sexes onward and bedward' Daily Telegraph 'Firmly in the centre of the playwright's best achievements: lively, coarse, well-organised, truthful and very funny' Financial Times Stags and Hens premiered at the Everyman Theatre, Liverpool, in October 1978. This edition was updated to coincide with the Liverpool Royal Court's production in February 2008, and includes a new introduction by the author.

Educating Rita, about a working-class Liverpool girl's hunger for education, is 'simply a marvellous play, painfully funny and passionately serious; a hilarious social documentary; a fairy-tale with a quizzical, half-happy ending.' Sunday Times Educating Rita premiered at the RSC Warehouse, London, in June 1980. Voted Best Comedy of 1980, it was subsequently made into a highly successful film with Michael Caine and Julie Walters.

Our Day Out is both funny and poignant, asking what a group of back-street kids from Liverpool can expect beyond a rare 'day out'? 24 parts: 10 adult males, 4 adult females, 10+ children.  Age 13+

Hairdresser Rita feels that life is passing her by. She wants an education. But does Frank have anything to teach her? Willy Russell’s play gives a hilarious - and often moving - account of a young woman’s determination to change her life.

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'One way of describing Educating Rita would be to say that it was about the meaning of education ... Another would be to say that it was about the meaning of life. A third, that it is a cross between Pygmailion and Lucky Jim. A fourth, that it is simply a marvellous play, painfully funny and passionately serious; a hilarious social documentary; a fairy-tale with a quizzical, half-happy ending.' Sunday TimesThis new student edition includes an introduction covering the play's context; chronology; dramatic devices; critical reception; production history; and key themes such as class and identity, popular culture and education. Educating Rita portrays a working-class Liverpool woman's hunger for education. It premiered at the RSC Warehouse, London, in 1980 and won the SWET award for Best Comedy of the Year. It was subsequently made into a highly successful film with Michael Caine and Julie Walters and won the 1983 BAFTA award for Best Film.Commentary and notes by Katie Beswick, University of the Arts London.

''One way of describing Educating Rita would be to say that it was about the meaning of education ... Another would be to say that it was about the meaning of life. A third, that it is a cross between Pygmailion and Lucky Jim. A fourth, that it is simply a marvellous play, painfully funny and passionately serious; a hilarious social documentary; a fairy-tale with a quizzical, half-happy ending.'' Sunday TimesThis new student edition includes an introduction covering the play''s context; chronology; dramatic devices; critical reception; production history; and key themes such as class and identity, popular culture and education. Educating Rita portrays a working-class Liverpool woman''s hunger for education. It premiered at the RSC Warehouse, London, in 1980 and won the SWET award for Best Comedy of the Year. It was subsequently made into a highly successful film with Michael Caine and Julie Walters and won the 1983 BAFTA award for Best Film.Commentary and notes by Katie Beswick, University of the Arts London.

''One way of describing Educating Rita would be to say that it was about the meaning of education ... Another would be to say that it was about the meaning of life. A third, that it is a cross between Pygmailion and Lucky Jim. A fourth, that it is simply a marvellous play, painfully funny and passionately serious; a hilarious social documentary; a fairy-tale with a quizzical, half-happy ending.'' Sunday TimesThis new student edition includes an introduction covering the play''s context; chronology; dramatic devices; critical reception; production history; and key themes such as class and identity, popular culture and education. Educating Rita portrays a working-class Liverpool woman''s hunger for education. It premiered at the RSC Warehouse, London, in 1980 and won the SWET award for Best Comedy of the Year. It was subsequently made into a highly successful film with Michael Caine and Julie Walters and won the 1983 BAFTA award for Best Film.Commentary and notes by Katie Beswick, University of the Arts London.

Willy Russell’s 1983 play with music tells the story of twin brothers separated at birth because their mother cannot afford to keep them both. One of them is given away to wealthy Mrs Lyons and they grow up as friends in ignorance of their fraternity until the inevitable quarrel unleashes a bloodbath.After its premiere at the Liverpool Playhouse, the musical has gone on to receive productions around the world and ran for decades in London’s West End, as well as extensively touring the UK.This revised Student Edition includes a commentary by Rebecca Hillman, which offers accessible and vivid insights into the play and the context in which it was written through a 21st-century lens. As well as helping us appreciate the play today, it also conveys how how ground-breaking Blood Brothers was at the time in representing working-class lives on stage, as well as explicitly exposing the flaws of the British class system.

Willy Russell''s 1983 play with music tells the story of twin brothers separated at birth because their mother cannot afford to keep them both. One of them is given away to wealthy Mrs Lyons and they grow up as friends in ignorance of their fraternity until the inevitable quarrel unleashes a bloodbath.After its premiere at the Liverpool Playhouse, the musical has gone on to receive productions around the world and ran for decades in London''s West End, as well as extensively touring the UK.This revised Student Edition includes a commentary by Rebecca Hillman, which offers accessible and vivid insights into the play and the context in which it was written through a 21st-century lens. As well as helping us appreciate the play today, it also conveys how how ground-breaking Blood Brothers was at the time in representing working-class lives on stage, as well as explicitly exposing the flaws of the British class system.

Willy Russell''s 1983 play with music tells the story of twin brothers separated at birth because their mother cannot afford to keep them both. One of them is given away to wealthy Mrs Lyons and they grow up as friends in ignorance of their fraternity until the inevitable quarrel unleashes a bloodbath.After its premiere at the Liverpool Playhouse, the musical has gone on to receive productions around the world and ran for decades in London''s West End, as well as extensively touring the UK.This revised Student Edition includes a commentary by Rebecca Hillman, which offers accessible and vivid insights into the play and the context in which it was written through a 21st-century lens. As well as helping us appreciate the play today, it also conveys how how ground-breaking Blood Brothers was at the time in representing working-class lives on stage, as well as explicitly exposing the flaws of the British class system.

Nominated for Best Revival at the Olivier Awards 2024I’d fallen in love with the idea of living... because we don’t do what we want to do, do we? We do what we have to do and pretend that it’s what we want to do.Shirley Valentine is the joyous, life-affirming story of the woman who got lost in marriage and motherhood, the woman who wound up talking to the kitchen wall whilst cooking her husband’s chips and egg. But Shirley still has a secret dream. And in her bag, an airline ticket...One day she may just leave a note, saying: ‘Gone! Gone to Greece.’Willy Russell’s celebrated one-woman play originally premiered in 1986 and became an instant classic, winning the Olivier Award for Best New Comedy and later being adapted into a successful film. This revised edition was published to coincide with the 2023 revival starring double Olivier Award and BAFTA winner Sheridan Smith.

Nominated for Best Revival at the Olivier Awards 2024I''d fallen in love with the idea of living... because we don''t do what we want to do, do we? We do what we have to do and pretend that it''s what we want to do.Shirley Valentine is the joyous, life-affirming story of the woman who got lost in marriage and motherhood, the woman who wound up talking to the kitchen wall whilst cooking her husband''s chips and egg. But Shirley still has a secret dream. And in her bag, an airline ticket...One day she may just leave a note, saying: ''Gone! Gone to Greece.''Willy Russell''s celebrated one-woman play originally premiered in 1986 and became an instant classic, winning the Olivier Award for Best New Comedy and later being adapted into a successful film. This revised edition was published to coincide with the 2023 revival starring double Olivier Award and BAFTA winner Sheridan Smith.