Biography
b. William Martin Russell, 23 August 1947, Whiston, Lancashire, England. Upon finishing school at fifteen, he took up hairdressing while quietly nurturing ambitions to write. During free hours he created songs on guitar and performed briefly with the Kirby Town Three. A sequence of mainly manual occupations followed until, at twenty-two, he chose to resume formal study, enrolling first at Childwall College of Further Education and later at St. Katharine’s College of Higher Education in Liverpool to train as a teacher. Although he taught for a short period in 1973/4, his creative energies had already turned toward playwriting. His debut work, Keep Your Eyes Down, reached the stage in 1971. Another early piece, Sam O’Shanker—an updating of Robert Burns’ Tam O’Shanter—was later condensed into a one-act play; together with Playground these formed the Blind Scouse trilogy, presented at the 1972 Edinburgh Fringe festival. The Fringe exposure brought him to the notice of the Everyman Touring Company, which subsequently mounted several of his plays.
In 1973 Russell reworked Alan Plater’s The Tigers Are Coming into When The Reds. Under Alan Dossor’s production and Pam Brighton’s direction at Liverpool’s Everyman Theatre, the cast included Bernard Hill, Anthony Sher, Jonathan Pryce, Alison Steadman, George Costigan, Trevor Eve, Liz Estensen, Philip Joseph, Matthew Kelly, Pete Postlethwaite, Julie Walters, and Bill Nighy. His next stage piece, John, Paul, George, Ringo … And Bert, transferred to London’s West End and secured Russell’s place in mainstream British theatre; the chronicle of the Beatles’ ascent and breakup earned both the Evening Standard and London Theatre Critics Awards for Best Musical. Subsequent theatre works encompassed Terraces (1979), Breezeblock Park (1975), Stags And Hens (1978)—later filmed in 1990 as Dancin’ Thru The Dark—and Educating Rita (1980). Commissioned by the Royal Shakespeare Company, Educating Rita won the 1980 SWET Award for Best Comedy after its West End run. Russell supplied the screenplay for the film version starring Michael Caine and Julie Walters, the latter reprising her original stage role, and received a 1983 Academy Award nomination for Best Screenplay Adaptation.
Blood Brothers premiered in 1981; a revised edition, for which Russell wrote book, lyrics, and score, opened in Liverpool in 1983, enjoyed a major West End success, and, despite tepid Broadway notices, ran two years and collected several Tony Awards. Shirley Valentine (1986) likewise played both the West End and Broadway, with Pauline Collins capturing SWET and Tony Awards as Best Actress; Russell himself garnered multiple honours for the play. He again wrote the screenplay when the work was filmed in 1989, winning the Evening Standard Film Award for Best Screenplay, and collaborated on the score with George Hatzinassios.
Russell’s initial television script, King Of The Castle, aired on the BBC in 1973. Later television dramas include Break In, The Death Of A Young, Young Man (both 1975), Our Day Out (1977)—which he adapted into a stage musical in 1983 and revised again in 1995—Lies, Politics And Terror (both 1978), The Daughters Of Albion (1979), The Boy With The Transistor Radio (1980), and Terraces (1993). A five-part Yorkshire Television serial for Channel Four, One Summer, encountered production difficulties that ultimately led Russell to remove his name from the credits. He supplied music for Ron Hutchinson’s Connie (1985), whose theme single “The Show,” performed by Rebecca Storm, nearly entered the charts, and composed the score for the Ken Eastaugh-scripted film Mr Love (1986). Radio credits include the 1976 play I Read The News Today. His debut novel, The Wrong Boy, appeared in 2000 and was later adapted for television. Over the years Russell has occasionally performed his own songs and readings alongside Andy Roberts, Roger McGough (of Scaffold and McGough And McGear), and Adrian Henri. In the early 00s Willy Russell & Friends was presented at Liverpool’s Everyman Theatre with Paul McCartney and Adrian Mitchell. With fellow writer Tim Firth he toured the UK in An Evening With Willy Russell And Tim Firth, interweaving their songs, film and play excerpts, poetry, and anecdotes; the pair collaborated again on the 2004 tour In Other Words. That same year Russell released Hoovering The Moon, featuring his own interpretations of selected songs.
A significant presence in British theatre, film, and television, Russell has described drama as a means of placing vital social questions before audiences who rarely seek such material in books. He has consistently upheld this conviction, producing a body of work that informs while remaining compelling entertainment.
In 1973 Russell reworked Alan Plater’s The Tigers Are Coming into When The Reds. Under Alan Dossor’s production and Pam Brighton’s direction at Liverpool’s Everyman Theatre, the cast included Bernard Hill, Anthony Sher, Jonathan Pryce, Alison Steadman, George Costigan, Trevor Eve, Liz Estensen, Philip Joseph, Matthew Kelly, Pete Postlethwaite, Julie Walters, and Bill Nighy. His next stage piece, John, Paul, George, Ringo … And Bert, transferred to London’s West End and secured Russell’s place in mainstream British theatre; the chronicle of the Beatles’ ascent and breakup earned both the Evening Standard and London Theatre Critics Awards for Best Musical. Subsequent theatre works encompassed Terraces (1979), Breezeblock Park (1975), Stags And Hens (1978)—later filmed in 1990 as Dancin’ Thru The Dark—and Educating Rita (1980). Commissioned by the Royal Shakespeare Company, Educating Rita won the 1980 SWET Award for Best Comedy after its West End run. Russell supplied the screenplay for the film version starring Michael Caine and Julie Walters, the latter reprising her original stage role, and received a 1983 Academy Award nomination for Best Screenplay Adaptation.
Blood Brothers premiered in 1981; a revised edition, for which Russell wrote book, lyrics, and score, opened in Liverpool in 1983, enjoyed a major West End success, and, despite tepid Broadway notices, ran two years and collected several Tony Awards. Shirley Valentine (1986) likewise played both the West End and Broadway, with Pauline Collins capturing SWET and Tony Awards as Best Actress; Russell himself garnered multiple honours for the play. He again wrote the screenplay when the work was filmed in 1989, winning the Evening Standard Film Award for Best Screenplay, and collaborated on the score with George Hatzinassios.
Russell’s initial television script, King Of The Castle, aired on the BBC in 1973. Later television dramas include Break In, The Death Of A Young, Young Man (both 1975), Our Day Out (1977)—which he adapted into a stage musical in 1983 and revised again in 1995—Lies, Politics And Terror (both 1978), The Daughters Of Albion (1979), The Boy With The Transistor Radio (1980), and Terraces (1993). A five-part Yorkshire Television serial for Channel Four, One Summer, encountered production difficulties that ultimately led Russell to remove his name from the credits. He supplied music for Ron Hutchinson’s Connie (1985), whose theme single “The Show,” performed by Rebecca Storm, nearly entered the charts, and composed the score for the Ken Eastaugh-scripted film Mr Love (1986). Radio credits include the 1976 play I Read The News Today. His debut novel, The Wrong Boy, appeared in 2000 and was later adapted for television. Over the years Russell has occasionally performed his own songs and readings alongside Andy Roberts, Roger McGough (of Scaffold and McGough And McGear), and Adrian Henri. In the early 00s Willy Russell & Friends was presented at Liverpool’s Everyman Theatre with Paul McCartney and Adrian Mitchell. With fellow writer Tim Firth he toured the UK in An Evening With Willy Russell And Tim Firth, interweaving their songs, film and play excerpts, poetry, and anecdotes; the pair collaborated again on the 2004 tour In Other Words. That same year Russell released Hoovering The Moon, featuring his own interpretations of selected songs.
A significant presence in British theatre, film, and television, Russell has described drama as a means of placing vital social questions before audiences who rarely seek such material in books. He has consistently upheld this conviction, producing a body of work that informs while remaining compelling entertainment.
Albums
