Preview: Rita, Sue and Bob Too

Best friends Rita and Sue get a lift home from married Bob after babysitting his kids. When he takes the scenic route and offers them a bit of fun, the three start a fling each of them think they control.

Andrea Dunbar’s semi-autobiographical play, written for the Royal Court Theatre in 1982 when she was just 19, is a vivid portrait of girls caught between brutal childhood and an unpromising future, both hungry for adult adventure.

Told with startling insight, a great ear for dialogue and wicked humour, Rita, Sue and Bob Too was adapted into a cult 80s film. The classic play’s original director Max Stafford-Clark directs the major new production from Out of Joint, which visiits Bristol Old Vic from October 3-7.

Here’s Gemma Dobson, who plays Sue, to tell us more.

Does this play have wider points to make about society, morality, family… or is it simply a wicked comedy of a married man having a fling with two schoolgirls?
Rita, Sue and Bob Too is the story of a married man having a fling with two schoolgirls, and the implications of that. It is a comedy, but there is a lot more to it than that. It shines a spotlight on the effects of poverty in our society, and how we as human beings are a product of our parents, and their parents before them. It is quite complex – it makes you laugh and it makes you think – and that is a credit to Andrea’s writing.

L-R: James Atherton (Bob), Taj Atwal (Rita), Gemma Dobson (Sue). All pics: Richard Davenport/ The Other Richard

Is it a portrait of its time (e.g. does it show the girls’ lives in northern Thatcher’s England as bleak and devoid of prospects) and, if so, can it still speak to us today?
Rita and Sue are on a Youth Training Scheme, which were the Apprenticeships of their time. They aren’t being encouraged or inspired into further education. Their parents simply want them earning, even if it is half wages. They are devoid of prospects. Rita dreams of being a police officer and is shut down by Bob… their opportunities are limited.
The fact that the girls are so infatuated by Bob and his wife Michelle who, as they see it, have the ‘perfect life’, shows that there isn’t much else going on for the girls to aspire to. They cant think much further than a nice house, a nice wardrobe and a couple of kids.

Samantha Robinson (Michelle)

And how does the political backdrop compare to our own?
The political climate is unfortunately the same now, if not worse, than it was in 1982. The story reflects working-class lives and their struggles as much now as it did then. Lorraine Dunbar, Andrea’s daughter, observed that the only difference was that 1982 was a pre-heroin era, and that ‘if the play was set today, Rita, Sue and perhaps other characters would be smackheads’.
The play deals with poverty, unemployment, sexual exploitation, marriage and family issues as well as adultery and grooming in a very funny way – but these issues are still as relevant today as they were then.

One review calls the first sex scene “funny, despite the queasy undertones of a man in his late 20s seducing a pair of 15-year-olds.” How do the rights and wrongs of this menage a trois come across to us now, in a more sensitive age towards underage sex?
I do think a modern audience feels less sympathetic towards Bob, because we understand grooming a lot more and it’s certainly come to light through recent scandals. However, as a company, we have tried not to paint Bob as a villain. Yes, he is a villain through his actions, but he is also a likeable character and James (Atherton) plays this beautifully, with no judgement on Bob.
The audiences so far have enjoyed the first scene of the play – there’s even been whooping and cheering. I suppose three people in a car having sex very awkwardly is funny! However, at this point you don’t know how old the girls are. It’s almost like Andrea is allowing the audience to enjoy the moment and then be shocked later on when they find out that they are only 15 years old. You get the sense that they are young, but you don’t know how young they actually are. Watching the play, and the film, you almost feel guilty for enjoying that scene. It’s such a complex story, it gets you on so many levels.

Does the play seek to be controversial, do you think?
When I was thinking about this question, David Bown, chief executive at Harrogate Theatre, said something really beautiful: “Andrea didn’t construct this play to be controversial, she just looked out of her window”. The play is Andrea looking out of the window and looking at her own life. It feels so raw because it’s her reality. It’s almost like she went out and recorded conversations and then wrote them down.

Tell us about Sue. How happy is she in this world of 1980s Bradford? How sympathetic are we encouraged to feel with her?
Sue makes the best of her situation. She finds light in a very harsh reality by having fun with Rita and Bob, and throughout the play, she is looking for a good time. She uses humour to deal with the hard things in her life, and that’s what I really like about her.
With all of the characters, we just present them as Andrea wrote them. There are good and bad in all of them. We didn’t sit down and discuss – ‘right, we really want the audience to feel sorry for so and so, or we really want them to hate so and so…’ – we actually really want them to like us all. Even Bob. Bob is just a normal bloke. He gets swept up with these 15-year-olds and they get swept up with him… it becomes a kind of escapism for all of them.
I don’t think that Sue is particularly happy in her environment, but she’d never let anyone see that she’s upset. What I like about playing her is that she puts up a front and that inside she’s really soft. She’d rather put up that barrier than let anyone see the vulnerability within her.

Rita, Sue and Bob Too is at Bristol Old Vic from Tuesday, October 3 to Saturday, October 7. For more info, visit www.bristololdvic.org.uk/rita-sue-and-bob-too.html