Commissioned by Columbia and produced and directed by Lewis Gilbert for Acorn Pictures. Educating Rita was released in 1983.
The Screenplay
When adapting successful stage play for the cinema, the writer and the director always have to face the question of how much to 'open up' the material without compromising the original. In adapting the hit comedy-drama Educating Rita for the big screen, director Lewis Gilbert and writer Willy Russell had a bigger hurdle than usual to jump here, for not only was the play set in just one room, it was also a two-hander!
