Reviews

Past Productions

Out of Joint, Liverpool Everyman & Playhouse and Soho Theatre Company present

RITA , SUE AND BOB TOO
by Andrea Dunbar (Bradford, 1982)

A STATE AFFAIR
by Robin Soans (Bradford, 2000)

Throwing new light on a comic classic, this provocative double bill takes a candid look at life on Britain’s estates over the last 20 years.

***** 'urgent, relevant and absolutely crucial'
The Guardian

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.

'I'd like all surviving members of the Thatcher, Major and Blair cabinets to see this searing double bill'
The Sunday Times

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.

'undoubtedly one of the best shows now on in London'
The Sunday Telegraph

NEW - Tour Dates ­ 2001 / 2002

28 Nov - 12 Jan		Soho Theatre, London 020 7478 0100 www.sohotheatre.com
15 Jan - 2 Feb		West Yorkshire Playhouse 0113 213 7700 www.wyp.co.uk
5 - 9 Feb		Newcastle Playhouse 0191 230 5151 www.northernstage.com
12 - 16 Feb		Traverse Theatre, Edinburgh 0131 228 1404 www.traverse.co.uk
19 - 23 Feb		Draoicht, Dublin 018 85 2622
25 - 27 Feb		Town Hall Theatre, Galway 091 569777 www.townhalltheatregalway.com
6 - 10 Mar		New Zealand Festival, Wellington www.nzfestival.telecom.co.nz