Nikki Sanderson in her previous production Fetish Knights
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Nikki Sanderson in St Helens Rita, Bob & Sue Too!, 17 Oct

Rita, Sue & Bob Too! returns to St Helens Theatre Royal this October with an all new cast including former Coronation Street star and recently - the stage play Fetish Knights - Nikki Sanderson. It also stars Tina Malone and her daughter Danielle and husband Paul.

Directed by Sylvie Gatrill, also makes a stage appearance as mum in the play which follows Rita and Sue - two working class girls from a rundown council estate, about to finish their final year at school, they are generally disillusioned with life and their circumstances.

In their spare time, they earn money babysitting for Bob and Michelle, a relatively affluent couple living in a large detached house in a more desirable part of town. Without Michelle's knowledge, Bob embarks on an affair with both Rita and Sue, who take it in turns to have sex with him in his car in the countryside. Michelle eventually finds out and leaves Bob but not before confronting Rita and Sue outside their homes and in front of their families and neighbours. When Bob later develops a preference for Rita, the two girls fall out. Rita then decides to move in with Bob and ends up pregnant, he then leaves Sue!
 
Rita, Sue and Bob Too! was written by Andrea Dunbar who wrote her first play The Arbor in 1977 at the age of 15, which was premiered in 1980 at London's Royal Court Theatre, directed by Max Stafford-Clark. It won the Young Writers' Festival, and was later extended and performed in New York. Dunbar was quickly commissioned to write a follow-up work, creating Rita, Sue and Bob Too, first performed in 1982. It was adapted for the cinema and was filmed in 1986 by Alan Clarke. The film created considerable controversy on the Buttershaw estate, where Dunbar lived, because of its negative portrayal of the area. A single mother with three children by different men, she became an increasingly heavy drinker. In 1990 she died of a brain haemorrhage at the age of 29.

The original Film Four low budget movie starred George Costigan, Lesley Sharpe, Siobhan Finneran and Michelle Holmes and became an instant success.

Rita Bob and Sue Too is at the St Helens Theatre Royal from 17 - 28 October.
 

- by Glenn Meads

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