Melbourne Reviews

Before taking husband Joe’s surname of Bradshaw and raising kids through to independent adulthood, Shirley’s life in Liverpool was far more exciting. Now 42, there’s an unexpected chance for a break from suburban monotony. But to do this she’ll have to live more like her younger, bolder self – Shirley Valentine.

First performed in 1986, Willy Russell’s monologue Shirley Valentine starred Pauline Collins, and was nominated for various high-profile awards, winning many of them. The pair’s success was somewhat continued into the 1989 film adaptation, although we don’t have to look that hard to find some pointed critiques.

With her voluminous blonde locks recalling an 80s poodle perm, and mostly faithful Liverpudlian vowels, Natalie Bassingthwaighte (credits ranging from tv’s Neighbours to the musical Chicago) is our current Shirley. She’s talking to her kitchen wall as she prepares Joe’s dinner. The Thursday tradition of mince helps to place the couple as working class.

Even if we haven’t followed UK politics so much, popular English films (or their spinoffs) such as Billy Elliot (2000) or The Full Monty (1997) have regularly given us insights into the grim lives of “northerners” under Thatcher. That kind of background is useful for helping an Australian audience understand why Shirley seems to have so little joy in her life. Her time is mostly occupied with her job and running the household of a merely practical marriage, and she has few close friends.

However, the first act labours over this. We could find ourself feeling that the monologue could cut some near repetition without detriment. Audiences have become accustomed to a brisker form of storytelling, and Russell’s meandering here makes this production feel like something of a time capsule. Similarly, a good deal of the humour seems quite predictable, although it did go over well with various sections of the opening-night crowd.

The key plot twist occurs when Shirley’s friend Jane offers her a ticket to Greece for a two-week holiday. Here Bassingthwaighte gets some of the meatiest content to chew as she convincingly weighs up the pros and cons of traveling, or not, and her excitement wins out.

The second act in Greece shows us the possible benefits of doing something different, even if it doesn’t quite go to plan. When a solo drink (as Jane met a guy on the plane over) by the ocean doesn’t live up to her imaginings, Shirley recalls the explanation of waiter Costas (through a nice bit of husky accent work): “Dreams are never in the places we expect them to be.”

Having opened herself to possibilities though, Shirley is freed from the drudgery of sharing Joe’s life through … adventure with Costas. Hmm, not exactly a Thelma-and-Louise type of liberation, is it? Well, this was all written by a man in the 1980s, back when content on the “discovery” of the clitoris was a good deal fresher ….

The life lessons of Shirley Valentine are dispensed liberally. But, after so many episodes of Oprah or Sex and the City, phrases like “self-actualisation” entering common parlance, and heck, even Nike’s “Just do it” first coined in 1988, the lessons seem pretty obvious.

Given the regular opening-night stumbles with the lengthy monologue, the truly curious (or maybe nostalgic?) might find it best to wait a few days. Still, Bassingthwaighte gives a credible performance as a transformed middle-aged woman, even if the script seems to suffer from being separated from the time and place of its writing.