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Sharp, funny and disarmingly direct, Andrea Dunbar’s semi-autobiographical Rita, Sue and Bob Too follows the lives of two feisty schoolgirls who grow up on a Bradford estate and start an affair with a married man. Written in 1982 when Dunbar was only 18, the play was originally commissioned and directed by Max Stafford-Clark. Rita, Sue and Bob Too caught the mood of the early Thatcher years and became widely recognised as a marker of its time.
18 years later, life on Britain’s council estates is back in the spotlight as reports of an emerging underclass dominate the media. In the summer of 2000, Max Stafford-Clark and Out of Joint’s actors journeyed back to the estates around Bradford and Leeds where Andrea Dunbar grew up. A State Affair is a record of what they found.
Cast: Emily Aston, Ian Redford, Emma Rydal, Lisé Stevenson, Matthew Wait, Gary Whitaker and Jane Wood.
Director: Max Stafford-Clark Designer: Es Devlin Lighting Desginer: Johanna Town Sound Designer: Frank Bradley
***** ‘urgent, relevant and absolutely crucial’ The Guardian
‘I’d like all surviving members of the Thatcher, Major and Blair cabinets to see this searing double bill’ The Sunday Times
‘undoubtedly one of the best shows now on in London’ The Sunday Telegraph
‘Theatre becomes urgent, relevant and absolutely crucial in this double bill of plays’ The Guardian
‘A massive achievement and a crucial account of life on an inner-city estate today’ Time Out