WILLY Russell's 2015 revamp of Educating Rita has been drawing full houses to Glaisdale, so much so that your reviewer had to squeeze into the last seat in the house, back row, by the window, on Tuesday night.

As ever with Esk Valley Theatre director Mark Stratton – soon to be seen with a luxuriant moustache in Northern Broadides' When We Are Married at York Theatre Royal – his choice of production has been spot-on.

Production costs for this small-scale moorland company are always tight, so what better than a two-hander with a top-quality cast, backed up by a set design by Graham Kirk with a wallpaper of pile upon pile of books behind a university lecturer's shabby study, where bottles of booze are hidden behind more books.

Christine Wall has done a sterling job with the costumes too: standard The History Man jacket and trousers for Ian Crowe's alcoholic, cynical English Lit lecturer Frank and an ever-changing wardrobe for Amy Spencer's Scouse hairdresser Rita as she progresses and changes through her Open University studies.

Russell's revamp is not a case of Re-educating Rita, so much as stripping out the 1980s references in favour of bringing out the universal truths in his story of an embittered, stagnating poet and lecturer being challenged by the bright spark of a 29-year-old working-class woman, a breath of fresh air amid the frustratingly linear world of academia.

Educating Rita, Esk Valley Theatre, The Robinson Institute, Glaisdale, near Whitby, 7.30pm tonight, Friday and Saturday. Box office: 01947 897587 or eskvalleytheatre.co.uk