![]() Encouraged by his wife, Russell began to take a fervent interest in theatre and started writing, first songs and later plays. When he was 20, he returned to education and went on to become a teacher. He left school at the age of 15 with one ‘O’ Level in English language and became a hairdresser. The standard British writer-type - conventional, middle class-upbringing involving tutelage in private or public school of varying prestige, three year attendance at either one of the country’s premier universities, any number of years in waiting before being acclaimed as the new chronicler of London society - is the very opposite of who Russell is. Russell is a very British writer he has the dry wit of Alans Bleasdale and Bennett, the sort of obsession with class and social problems you see in the work of Mike Leigh or Ken Loach, the constrained and peculiar sense of wry sentimentality prevalent in much of British writing, and an obvious affection for his characters, evident in everything from Shelagh Delaney’s A Taste of Honey to the songs of The Smiths. ![]() Wise, funny and incessantly acerbic, they are irresistible, full of sarcastic zest and a melancholic longing for a different way of life, for new ways of seeing, for alternative expectations from the world around them they speak to anyone born without an item from the cutlery tray in their mouth, to those who have lived beyond privilege. Willy Russell’s Rita and Shirley Valentine are two of the most memorable creations of recent decades. It is currently being adapted for television. In 2000, Willy Russell published his first novel, The Wrong Boy. His first album, Hoovering the Moon, was released in 2003. He also wrote the score for Shirley Valentine, and for several other television series and plays. The show has been playing in the West End since 1983 and has won 3 Best Music Awards and one Best Actress Award at the Laurence Olivier Awards. He wrote the lyrics and score for his popular musical Blood Brothers (1986), about a pair of twins separated at birth. Willy Russell has continued to write songs since the early 1960s. He has also written plays for television, including the well-received Our Day Out (1984). Both plays were made into films from Willy Russell’s own screenplays, starring Julie Walters and Pauline Collins respectively, each actress winning an Oscar nomination, as did the author for best screenplay for Educating Rita. Since then he has written several plays, including Educating Rita (1981), about a working-class woman who decides to study English with the Open University, and Shirley Valentine (1988), about a housewife who becomes transformed after a holiday in Greece. ![]() It was transferred to the West End and won the Evening Standard and London Theatre Critic Award for best musical in 1974. His first play, Keep your Eyes Down, was produced in 1971, and he became well-known after his musical about the Beatles, John, Paul, George, Ringo … and Bert, ran for eight weeks at Liverpool Everyman Theatre. At 20 years of age, he returned to college and became a teacher in Toxteth, after which he began to become interested in writing drama. He also wrote songs and sketches for local radio programmes. He became a hairdresser on leaving school, then undertook a variety of jobs, also writing songs which were performed in local folk clubs. Willy Russell was born in Liverpool in 1947. ![]()
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