Educating Rita Page #6

Frank, I've packed up.

Congratulations.

- Got a present for you.

- Oh? What is it?

It's not much but I thought, you know...

- Oh.

- Look, see what's written on it.

It's engraved.

"Must only be used for poetry.

"By strictest order, Rita. "

- I thought it'd be a gentle hint.

- Gentle?

What are we gonna be doing this term,

Frank? Let's do a dead good poet.

One of the greats.

- A dead good poet...

- Mmm.

- I've got just the man for you.

- Who?

They overcomplicate him, Rita,

they overcomplicate him.

You won't, you'll love him.

I was going to introduce him to you

before but I was saving him for you.

- Who?

- Read this.

O Rose, thou art sick!

The invisible worm

That flies in the night,

In the howling storm,

Has found out thy bed

Of crimson joy:

And his dark secret love

Does thy life destroy.

- You know it.

- Yeah, we did it at summer school.

- You did Blake at summer school?

- Yeah.

You weren't supposed to.

No, I know but we had this lecturer

and he was a real Blake freak.

So you've, er, you've done, er, Blake?

Yeah.

- Songs Of Innocence And Experience?

- Oh, course.

Well, you don't do Blake without doing

Innocence And Experience, do you?

Thanks, Frank.

Sure you don't want me to come in?

You never know who you'll meet.

If I end up as a white slave

I'll send you a postcard.

Go on! I'll see you at the tutorial.

Yes?

Erm... I've come about the advert.

You know, for sharing the flat.

Wouldn't you just die

without Mahler?

Oh! What am I doing?

Come in, come in.

Just through there, we're up the stairs,

sort of mezzanine level. Follow me.

Well, this is it.

A small place but mine own.

Do say you'll take it! You're positively

the first human being that's applied.

Yeah. Yeah, I'll take it.

What?

I said I'll take the flat!

Oh, what am I doing?

This is madness!

What do you...?

- What do you do?

- Er, I'm a hairdresser.

Oh, dear. By choice?

I suppose so.

What do you do?

Oh, darling, a bit of this, a bit of that.

I'm running a bistro

for a friend at the moment.

Fascinating people. You'd love it!

What did you say your name was?

- Well, I've, er...

- Oh, Mahler!

Wouldn't you just die without him?

Hello, Frank.

Hello, Rita. You're late.

I know, I know. I'm terribly sorry, Frank.

But, Frank, wouldn't you simply die

without Mahler?

Frankly, no.

Why are you talking like that?

I have merely decided to talk properly.

You see, as Trish says, there's not a lot

of point in discussing beautiful literature

with a ugly voice.

But you haven't got an ugly voice.

At least, you didn't have.

- Why don't you just be yourself?

- I am being meself.

- Who the hell is Trish, anyway?

- Me new flatmate.

- Oh. Is she a good flatmate?

- Frank, she's fantastic.

She's dead classy, you know?

She's got taste, like you have.

Everything in the flat

is dead unpretentious.

Just books and plants everywhere.

I'm having the time of me life.

I am, you know? I feel young.

Rita, 27 is hardly old.

Yes, I know but I mean, I feel young.

I can be young, like them down there.

I want you to do an essay on Blake.

I know you're an expert on Blake now

but I haven't had the benefit

of your wisdom on the subject.

Are you still on that stuff?

Did I ever say I wasn't?

- Well, no, but...

- But what?

Why do it when you've got

so much going for you?

It is because I have

so much going for me that I do it.

Life is such a rich and frantic world

that I need the drink

to help me step delicately through it.

It'll kill you, Frank.

Rita, I thought you weren't interested

in reforming me.

- I'm not! It's just...

- Just what?

Well, I thought you might have started

reforming yourself.

Under your influence?

But, Rita, if I take the oath -

if I repent and reform -

what will I do

when your influence is no longer here?

No, your going is as inevitable as...

- Macbeth.

- As tragedy, yes.

But it will not be a tragedy

because I shall be glad to see you go.

Oh, thank you very much.

Will you really?

Be glad to see you go? Of course.

I wouldn't want you to stay

in a room like this forever.

You can be a real misery sometimes.

I was dead happy when I came in.

Now I feel like I'm having

a bad night in the morgue.

- He's eaten it.

- He hasn't!

Darling, could you take table 14?

- Yeah, OK.

- That horrible man

keeps coming in here to chat me up.

Where are the real men these days?

Why don't we get the likes of Shelley

and Byron and Coleridge in here?

- I think they'd smell a bit.

- Oh, you are a love.

Did you see

the production of Saint Joan...

Can I take your order?

Er, I'll begin with the pt mackerel.

Oh, yeah, that's very good, yeah.

Really, it was beautiful.

- It was written later than that.

- It was 1926.

I know that Shaw wrote

Saint Joan in 1926.

He didn't, Tiger. Shaw wrote it in 1936.

Actually, Shaw wrote Saint Joan in 1923

but the first production was in 1924

at the New Theatre in London.

More wine, anyone?

- Hi, Susan.

- Hiya.

Hi, Susan!

Susan!

- What?

- We want you to settle an argument.

- What about?

- Lawrence's early works.

I reckon they're a load of rubbish.

- Hello, Susan.

- What's up?

Hiya, Frank.

I'm sorry I'm late. I got talking to some

students, I never realised the time.

Well, well, well.

You talking to students, Rita.

Well, don't sound so surprised!

I can talk, you know.

You used to be so wary of them.

God knows why. They don't half

come out with some rubbish.

You're telling me!

Do you know what one of them said?

He said that, as a novel, he preferred

Lady Chatterley to Sons And Lovers.

Right, so I thought,

"Right, either I can ignore this

"or I can put him straight. "

So I put him straight.

- So you finished him off, did you, Rita?

- Oh, Frank, he was asking for it.

He was an idiot.

His argument just crumbled.

It wasn't just me, anyway.

Everyone agreed with me.

Tiger was with them.

Do you know Tiger?

Yes.

He's dead mad, you know.

He's only known me five minutes,

he's inviting me to go abroad.

They're all going to the south of France,

slumming it.

You can't go, you've got exams.

Me exams are before the summer.

Well, y-you've got to, er,

wait for the results.

His real name's Tyson,

they call him Tiger.

Is there any point in going on with this?

Is there any point

in working towards an examination

if you're gonna fall in love

and set off to the south of France?

Fall in love? With who?

My God, Frank, I'm just talking

to some students down on the lawn.

Jesus, I've heard of matchmaking

but this is ridiculous.

Well, stop burbling on about Mr Tyson.

I'm not burbling on.

Well? What's me essay like?

It, er...

It wouldn't look out of place with these.

Honest?

Dead honest.

? Why are we waiting?

? Why are we waiting?

? Why are we waiting

? Oh why, oh why?

Poetry.

Literature.

What does it benefit a man...

if he gaineth the whole of literature

and loseth his soul?

No but seriously, folks,

there is something that I have always

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