Educating Rita by Willy Russell is about a working-class Liverpool girl's hunger for education. Called a "simply marvelous play, painfully funny and passionately serious; a hilarious social documentary; a fairytale with a quizzical, half-happy ending" by Sunday Times (London). Educating Rita was premiered at the RSC Warehouse, London in June 1980 and won the Society of West End Theatres' award for Best Comedy the same year. It was subsequently made into a highly successful film with Michael Caine and Julie Walters. Other works by Russell include the musical Blood Brothers and the comedy Shirley Valentine.