Michael Alexander speaks to Perth-raised actress Sally Reid about playing Shirley Valentine at Pitlochry Festival Theatre and why the character escaping ‘drudgery’ offers hope during ‘utterly depressing’ times.
It’s the heart-warming story about a middle-aged, working-class Liverpool housewife whose life is transformed after a holiday in Greece.
Shirley Valentine finds herself talking to the wall while she prepares her husband’s ‘egg ‘n’ chips,’ wondering what happened to her life.
She compares scenes in her current life with what she used to be like and feels she is stagnating and in a rut.
But when her best friend wins an all-expenses-paid vacation to Greece for two, she leaves the drudgery of cooking dinner for her husband behind, packs her bags and heads for the sun.
The note on the kitchen table reads ‘Gone to Greece, back in two weeks.’
Shirley begins to see the world, and herself, in a different light.
Getting to know the story
Perth-raised star of stage and screen Sally Reid was a teenager when she first watched the film version starring Pauline Collins.
While it wasn’t really aimed at her age group, she remembers it being a “big thing” with iconic images of Shirley in the kitchen cooking chips.
Now, as Sally takes on the title role of Shirley at Pitlochry Festival Theatre – directed by Elizabeth Newman – she reveals that Shirley’s story is one that resonates as she’s got older.
“You sometimes hear about it – the Shirley Valentine effect – a sort of clichéd comparison to a mid-life crisis or a woman wanting to break out,” Sally tells The Courier.
“When I came to visit Elizabeth about doing it, I watched the start of the film. But I very quickly switched it off because I thought that could be too imposing.
“Instead, I just read the script and it’s all there.
“It just spoke to me in a different way from seeing it when I was a teenager.
“I think things that have happened in my life or things you resonate with. It rings so true for so many people that I have met or have spoken about or to.”
‘Full of hope’
Sally says Shirley Valentine is undoubtedly a powerful story that’s “full of hope”.
She thinks the audience will be cheering Shirley along to “go for it”.
She acknowledges that in these troubled times of political instability and rising economic pressures it’s “utterly depressing” what people in real life are going through.
Drudgery remains very real, and perhaps going on holiday is no longer an option for many people.
She hopes, however, that people can still dream and get “lost in culture”.
Great writing
Sally feels that original Shirley Valentine writer Willy Russell is an “incredible observer of human beings”.
He balances the “dark side of feelings and life” with “glorious, well-observed humour”.
Shirley and her husband don’t really talk to each other. Instead, she talks to the wall.
Less about a bad marriage or being chained to the kitchen sink, it’s more about lost opportunities.
This sense of a “wasted life” also applies to Shirley’s husband Joe.
But the story is told through the eyes of Shirley and how she breaks free from that or deals with that with a huge amount of bravery. Who else stands on the edge and jumps?
Scot Squad
Sally is best known for playing PC Sarah Fletcher in the hit BBC Scotland comedy series Scot Squad.
Her other television credits include Annika (UKTV), River City (BBC Scotland), Karen Pirie (ITV) and Rab C. Nesbitt (BBC Scotland).
On stage Sally’s extensive theatre credits in Scotland include The James Plays (National Theatre of Scotland), Rhinoceros (Royal Lyceum Theatre Edinburgh) and Time and the Conways (Royal Lyceum Theatre Edinburgh and Dundee Rep) for which Sally was nominated Best Actress at the Theatre Management Awards in 2013.
Sally says director Elizabeth Newman has been “very freeing and open” in the Shirley Valentine rehearsal room.
Love of Perthshire
While Sally has loved being back in Perthshire, she’s also looking forward to taking Shirley Valentine on a stripped back tour of Mull and Iona when the Pitlochry run is complete.
“Even though it’s not going to be like Corfu,” she laughs, “I think doing it somewhere where there’s water is significant.
“The last time I was in Iona it was in the summer a few years ago and it was tropical.
“You could have been abroad. It was incredible. I’ve never seen blue water like that. Just incredible white beaches and incredible water.
“Going back there will be a stripped back version – a community hall type thing.
“But how nice to be in Pitlochry?
It’s incredible. I love it. I wish I’d done it years ago.
“My grandparents lived in rural Perthshire just not far from here. I feel really connected to it. We’d come here as kids. It feels like a real homecoming.”
When to see Shirley Valentine
Shirley Valentine runs from October 13 to 29 at Pitlochry Festival Theatre and then tours the Isles of Mull and Iona from November 1-4.
Tickets are available from the Box Office on 01796 484626 or online at pitlochryfestivaltheatre.com
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