An entire generation will associate the name Shirley Valentine with Pauline Collins, who portrayed the character in the West End, on Broadway, and on screen. Now, almost four decades on from the premiere of Willy Russell’s play, there’s a new Shirley in town, and she’s a revelation.
It’s the play that sparked a national conversation for its portrayal of a woman who has reached the age of 42 and realises she’s had a whole lot of life that’s not been lived. An empty nester, Shirley prepares dinner for her husband, Joe, cooked in real time over the first act. With only the kitchen wall to talk to, Shirley laments on how quickly the years have passed by, and how a monotonous routine has emerged, Thursday night? That’ll be mince for tea.
But Shirley is offered an escape; two weeks in Greece paid for by a friend that’s just sold her house. At first it seems like an impossible dream, something that other people do, but not Shirley. Maybe it’s her daughter’s selfishness, or her husband’s lack of gratitude, but something makes Shirley get on that plane, and it’s only then she truly starts living.
Willy Russell’s script has stood the test of time, the monologue is bursting with sharp observational comedy, the kind that lulls its audience into an easy relationship with the character. That wall isn’t really the only thing that Shirley has to talk to, she has us, to the point where we’re all expecting a plate of egg and chips.
Director Matthew Dunster opens up Shirley’s home and life to the audience and his pacing means that every line Sheridan Smith delivers is done so with the precision required to amuse, shock, or cajole the audience as the script intended. Paul Will’s set is the picture of 80’s drab domesticity, opening up after the interval to portray the tranquillity of a Greek island.
But what makes this production of Shirley Valentine a real triumph is the star of the show. Sheridan Smith delivers a tour-de-force as the titular character, commanding the stage for the entire two hours, with the audience hanging on every word. Aside from truly understanding Russell’s Liverpudlian humour, Smith revels in portraying Shirley as a more gutsy character, still vulnerable, but excited by the prospect of what life might still have to offer.
As a country, we fell in love with this Liverpool housewife in the eighties, but all these years later we can fall in love again, because Sheridan Smith’s heartfelt portrayal of Shirley Valentine is the must-see theatre event of the year.
