Rita (Jennifer Porter) a witty and down-to-earth working-class hairdresser from Liverpool, in a courageous break for personal freedom, signs up for an adult education class, and finds herself under the grudging tutelage of Frank (Dana Packard) a cynical, alcoholic English professor.  Bursting with curiosity and stymied by circumstance, Rita idealizes the privileged academic world of which she so longs to be a part.  Frank, a failed poet, long-since disillusioned by what he sees as the charade of academia, smothers his bitterness with booze and a talent for mockery.  Rita’s exuberance brings much needed air, and even joy, into Frank’s staid world, and the friendship that develops between the unlikely pair educates them both in unexpected ways.

“A marvelous play, painfully funny, and passionately serious. A hilarious social-documentary” –The London Times