A SPRINKLING of glamour has been added to the Courtyard these past weeks, as actors Zoie Kennedy and Stephen McGann have rehearsing for Educating Rita.

Stephen, who is 42, and 27-year-old Zoie have been regular lunch partners as they get to grips with the multi-faceted contemporary classic by Willy Russell.

For Stephen, it's a role he's taken ahead of time - university lecturer Frank is written as 10 years older, facing a mid-life crisis, while Zoie is bang on cue for Rita's late entry to university.

Under the direction of Estelle van Warmelo the two stars will appear in next week's first professional in-house production of the year, and it's what the venue excels in.

Since it was written in 1980, Educating Rita has never been out of production, somewhere in the world.

Many will be familiar with the 1983 film version starring Michael Caine and Julie Walters - it gained both a BAFTA.

For Estelle it is "about time" that Russell filled the contemporary classic slot and, although tempted by his Shirley Valentine, she got the cast she wanted for Rita.

It's a small, intimate play with big ideas which explores the relationship between tutor and student.

The jaded Frank, with failed relationship and flailing career, is confronted by the insatiable Rita, whose unschooled reaction to the classics may just pull him back from the brink.

Often compared with Shelley's Frankenstein and Shaw's Pygmalian, Rita turns on her creator.

Empowered by her newly-acquired pseudo intellectualism she shows her ugly side.

"It's an extraordinary piece," says Estelle, who is known for her love of a good text. "There's so much choice - we can play it like this, we can play it like that and, on this occasion, have allowed ourselves the time to really experiment, really push it."

The cast was headhunted, which is something generally associated with film-making.

Both actors came recommended. Stephen had rehearsed in Hereford for a touring production of Hardy's Far From The Madding Crowd two years ago, and Zoie is local, and well-known for her portrayal of Nurse Meryl Taylor in Sunday's evening's TV soap, The Royal.

Having spent three years filming the series, which comes from the same stable as Heartbeat, she has left to pursue other options - Rita being the first.

"It was time to make the break," she says.

The plucky confidence she brings with her is resonant of Rita's own.

In the same way that Rita has made her big decision before the play starts, just walking through the door of Frank's office, she has given up a lot to be here.

Poignant, funny and tragic all at once, the play explores the themes of education, freedom and starting afresh.

"It's painful to witness, and very recognisable, but it's ultimately a redemptive, feel good piece," Estelle says.

"We've all had role models we've aspired to over the years, who sometimes fall from grace when we've outgrown them.

"There are so many parallels and literary references that echo throughout, symbolising the catharthis they're engaging with, I'd recommend seeing it twice.

"No audience can be expected to get everything the first time.

"From a director's point of view it's a land of milk and honey."

Both actors are finding the degree of concentration dealing with a two-hander exhausting - though Stephen identifies the control of energy as exciting.

Zoie is pleased to be doing something more modern, having toured for five months with a costume drama, The Marquise, last year and with Staff Nurse Meryl being stuck in the 60s.

She's now worrying what dreadful 80s perm they're planning on giving her!

Both have northern roots - Zoie's family originating from Bury, Stephen's from Liverpool, where the play and its writer are based.

Although Stephen shares a profession with his three brothers - Paul, Joe and Mark - his dad was a factory worker and mum a teacher, and Zoie and her sister were the first in her family to go to university.

Both can identify with the central theme of the piece - education as a means of escape.

Zoie attained her place at Monmouth Haberdashers via a scholarship and was used to sounding like a fish out of water.

The bearded Stephen has accessed the despair of Frank though his friends' lives and his own threshold of a 'rights of passage'.

"At 42 I can feel echoes of something gone.

"For Frank it's the Indian summer that breaks him - he's in that bittersweet part of his life.

"Ultimately though, it's a play about being able to change and that makes it a little bit more interesting for me as a younger man, and maybe more of a challenge."

"It's not just a sexual reawakening," Zoie adds.

Educating Rita open at Hereford Courtyard on Tuesday and runs to May 28. Tickets are available on 0870 1122330.