About the Writer Willy Russell :: Willy Russell Playwright biographies Essays

About the Writer Willy Russell William Russell was born in Whiston - just outside Liverpool, in 1947. At primary school he enjoyed reading, football and gardening, these were the only subjects he likes, but at secondary school he was consigned to the factory fodder D stream. It was in this surprising environment that he conceived the idea of being a writer. His only experience of factory work caused him to fail to obtain a printing apprenticeship, so his mother suggested he trained to be a women's hairdresser. He trained and worked as a women's hairdresser for five years, eventually running his own salon. After this he was seeking a career that would give him a greater opportunity and understanding of being a writer. He decided to become a student, having now passed O level English at night classes. No local education authority would give him a bursary, so he spent some time girder cleaning at Fords in order to fund his college O & A level studies. He only did this long enough so that he could afford the course; he spent no time extra doing this job as climbing up on dirty, oily girders was a very dangerous job which many of his colleagues were injured on. You can see in the play that Russell is commenting on society as Russell is almost like Rita, she lives near Liverpool with little education and works in a hairdresser, trying to get the opportunity to have choice by getting an education. During the play, Russell shows that the class system is a part of modern society and Rita wants to change classes, from working to middle, but has little education. She wants Equal opportunities in that the way that women are expected to have babies and stay at home all day, but in his play Rita breaks away from everyone else and gets an education and he shows in the play, how hard it really is to get an education and all the troubles that someone of a lower class has to go through to achieve there goals. I think that Russell wrote this play because he had a hard time in his own life, and he wanted to express to other people that you need to have a choice or you will begin to experience a feeling of being trapped in society. I think that Russell used humour in his play because it would make the audience watching the play understand the issues brought up. I think the play runs better as a comedy, with the humour aspects of the play rather than a more serious drama.