Andrea Dunbar

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Andrea Dunbar (1961-1990) was a British playwright best known for Rita, Sue and Bob Too, an autobiographical drama about the sexual adventures of teenage girls living in a run-down part of Bradford, England. Shelagh Delaney described Dunbar as "a genius straight from the slums".^[1]

Dunbar began her first play The Arbour in 1977 at the age of 15, writing it as a classroom assignment. Encouraged by her teacher she was helped to develop the play to performance standard.^[2] It was premiered in 1980 at London's Royal Court Theatre, directed by Max Stafford-Clark. It won the Young Writers' Festival, and was later extended and performed in New York.^[3] The play described the experiences of a pregnant teenager with an abusive drunken father.

Dunbar was quickly commissioned to write a follow-up work, creating Rita, Sue and Bob Too, first performed in 1982. The play explored similar themes to The Arbour, in this case depicting the lives of two teenage girls who are both having an affair with the same married man. Dunbar's third play, Shirley (1986), placed greater emphasis on the central character.

Rita, Sue and Bob Too was adapted for the cinema and was filmed in 1986 by Alan Clarke. The film created considerable controversy on the Buttershaw estate, where Dunbar lived, because of its negative portrayal of the area. She was threatened by several residents. Nevertheless, Dunbar stayed on the estate. A single mother with three children by different men, she became an increasingly heavy drinker. In 1990 she died of a brain haemorrhage at the age of 29.

In 2000 Dunbar's life and her surroundings were revisited in the play A State Affair by Robin Soans.