Minack Theatre - Educating Rita

 

About time to see some live theatre. This was Educating Rita at Minack Theatre, in Cornwall. It was actually our second attempt, having previously been along on a day that it was cancelled because of high winds and rain. When we were told, we had just set out from St Ives, and were slightly surprised that it had been cancelled. Sure enough, that evening, sitting in the pub garden, we got well-and-truly soaked. The rain came down like some kind of comedy show. I retreated inside at one point for a complete change of clothes. Yes, Minack had got their weather forecast right.

We managed to get some more tickets for another day, and decided to make a round trip of it. The show was early evening and didn't finish too late. Thoroughly enjoyable, with Stephen Thompkinson and Jessica Johnson as Frank and Rita, performing on the cliff edges as if it was the spires of Oxford. Around two thirds of the way through, the weather changed. Frank and Rita continued unabashed. The audience shuffled slightly and battened down for the rest of the performance. To the credit of the cast and the rest of the production crew, the show really did go on, and you'd be hard pressed to tell that they were combatting the elements. Only in the last encore did the main characters turn around and we all saw they were - well - soaked through.