ONE of the best - and most popular - recent productions of the Nonentities details the intriguing journey of a chirpy scouse hairdresser to slick literary critic and her relationship with her jaded tutor along the way.

Educating Rita has returned to the Rose with mesmerising performances by Jo Widdowson as the knowledge-hungry Open University student and David Wakeman as the whisky-hungry English literature professor.

Adding to the healthy doses of humour from Rita's bluntness and naivety mixing with Frank's reawakening from his alcoholic torpor, the play's real strength lies in its candid portrayal of the class system.

Rita shatters Frank's cosy - if polite - singing-round-the piano view of working class "culture" by saying people don't want crap jobs but meaning to their life.

She aspires to be educated but admits she feels like a "half-cast" - she's left behind her roots but feels she can't penetrate middle-class pretentiousness.

Meanwhile Frank can hardly bring himself to teach her anything for fear it might displace the "valuable" insight she already has - rousing Rita's scorn and hatred for pity.

But Rita attains her dream of education and there is the heart-wrenching prospect - for the audience and Frank - she has outgrown the nest.

Widdowson and Wakeman do a magnificent script justice and do not disappoint theatre-goers who may have seen such luminaries as Michael Caine and Julie Walters tackle the same plot. FA