As Shirley unpacks the shopping in her drab kitchen, while the houselights slowly fade, we are treated to Gilbert O’Sullivan’s ‘Alone Again (Naturally)’. Two hours later she’s on a beach in Greece, anticipating the arrival of her husband to the strains of Neil Finn and Crowded House’s ‘Don’t Dream It’s Over’. Nice one.

Very much of its time (mid 1980s), Willy Russell’s Shirley Valentine stands now as a play each generation should see. First, it reminds us where we’ve come from in attitudes to marriage. Second, it prompt lovers young and aging to remind themselves and each other that Clitoris is not a Greek island, even if – in this case – it takes a Greek explorer of foreign bodies to help Shirley rediscover it.

In richly fluent Liverpuddlian argot, the play rolls great gobs of insight and wisdom off the gabby tongue of an extra-ordinary creature of 42 years conditioning, more than half of it spent consolidating her wife (of Joe) and mother (of Brian and Milandra) habits. She’s no radical activist. It’s thanks to the generosity of her best friend Jane – who bought the tickets to Greece – that Mrs Joe Bradshaw somehow becomes an accidental liberationist.

Or is her journey from Joe to Costa and beyond, from housewife and mother back to her future as Shirley Valentine, inevitable, given her lively and questing mind? Her journey starts with “Why?” – asked, in her case, of the wall that confines her: “Why do y’ get all this life when it can’t be used? Why do y’ get all these feelin’s an’ dreams an’ hopes if they can’t ever be used?” And once she’s worked through it all, the only real question left is “Why not?”

Despite an horrendous headmistress who predicted she’d never go far in life, and the rebellious “hating everything” and “what’s the point?” phases that followed, Shirley continues to quest as she sips a large glass of Riesling and prepares chips and eggs on automatic pilot, knowing already there’ll be hell to pay because it’s supposed to be mince on Thursdays.

Amid her witty and whimsical observations, all the funnier for being rooted in desperation, fear of change and numbness rather than pain, powerful insights hit home: “Why does loving someone give you the right to treat them worse than someone you only like?”

Once the chips and eggs are down – thrown all over the floor and Shirley by Joe (who is given to addressing the big questions of life to the fridge) – their daughter Milandra, and before her a patronising neighbour, serve to erode Shirley’s self-esteem: And yet it is the neighbour who revives it with a gift and sincere affirmation of her courage. Yes, she does deserve to have a fortnight’s holiday in Greece!

Abandoned by Jane to an isolated Greek island cove, Shirley’s pleasure in only having herself to answer to brings challenges and opportunities she wasn’t expecting. Abetted by Costa from the Taverna who owns a boat and loves her stretch marks, she rediscovers her self – Shirley Valentine – and gets herself a life. But what of the old one …?

Simply staged for this one-off performance at the Opera House (designer Michael Knapp), the first act kitchen is an island amid the swathes of calico that will become the second-act beach. There are some strange aspects to the directing (Fred Alder), however. A radio mic disembodies her voice, and distracts with distorted volume and by threatening to fall from the side of her face throughout the first scene. Shirley addresses the small window upstage right as “Wall”, although she does directly address us, beyond the fourth wall, most of the time. A bright follow spot is used to illuminate the side scene with Milandra (is she about to break into a song and dance routine, I wonder?).

But the character and story can survive such things and Nancy Schroder (ex-London, now of Ashburton via the Caribbean cruises where, as a dancer, she fell in love with the ship’s doctor) gives an excellent account of Shirley’s journey.

Given there is so much fast-talking story telling, it’s a big challenge to get us empathising with the emotions she felt at the times in question but is not indulging in now. Early on, pace and liveliness takes precedence over insight and pathos but later the moments of truth hit home.

I have no idea what further plans are afoot for this production but if it turns up near you, it’s well worth seeing. Amid the many groups of women ‘of a certain age’ that graced the Opera House last night, couples of all ages enjoyed the experience.
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