Richard Herring is to play disillusioned and alcoholic lecturer Frank in an amateur stage production of Educating Rita.

The stand-up and podcaster will appear opposite fellow comedian Anna Morris in the play, which runs for just four nights in Hertfordshire in April.

Herring previously borrowed the title of Willy Russell's enduring drama for his own 1997 Edinburgh Fringe play Excavating Rita, about a teenager on an archaeological dig.

The version of Educating Rita at the Queen Mother Theatre in Hitchin – which is local to Herring – will be directed by writer and former stand-up Max Davis, who created the BBC radio sitcom Parental Guidance starring Romesh Ranganathan.

Herring – who has just been unveiled as one of the contestants in this year’s Celebrity Bake Off –  told the British Comedy Guide that he was asked to audition by Davis, his regular tennis opponent in the town.

‘Initially offended, on checking my mirror I realised that I was in fact old enough to play him,’ he said.

'It's very exciting to be considered as good an actor as Michael Caine and am hoping this means I will also get to play Scrooge in a production of the Muppet Christmas Carol. Which surely I am too young for. No, my mirror says it's fine again.’

Caine played Frank in the 1983 film adaptation of Education Rita, which  starred Julie Walters in the title role.

Herring’s co-star Anna Morris played Sophie Duchess of Edinburgh in The Windsors and Emily Maitlis in Mitchell and Webb Are Not Helping. She’s also starred in Channel 4’s Lee and Dean and presented a number of solo shows at the Edinburgh Fringe – where she won a Fringe First award for her 2024 play Son Of A Bitch.

The Bancroft Players production of Educating Rita will be staged at the 74-seater  Richard Whitmore Studio at the Queen Mother Theatre from April 21 to 24. Tickets. 

The company was set up after the Second World War and runs the theatre on a largely voluntary basis with the aim of  ‘bringing professional standard plays and musicals to the stage’.