Shirley Valentine’s Lyceum date
Sally Reid to reprise award-winning role
The Pitlochry Festival Theatre 2022 production of Willie Russell’s iconic play Shirley Valentine is touring to the Lyceum in June 2024, with Sally Reid reprising her award-winning turn in the title role.
Tickets are already on sale for the production which will have just 19 performances in a run from Wednesday 12 to Saturday 29 June 2024 (tickets), before it returns to the PFT for a continuing engagement from July 4 (tickets).
Sally Reid as Shirley Valentine in the PFT 2022 production Pic: Fraser Band
Sally Reid won one of the two Outstanding Performance awards at the 2023 Critics Awards for Theatre in Scotland for her original performance In Elizabeth Newman’s “captivating” production of the Willy Russell monologue (link).
Shirley Valentine is a celebration of women, freedom and what it means to find yourself again. Shirley, a bored, middle-aged wife and mother contemplates what has happened to her youth. She feels lonely, disenchanted and in a rut. Her children are all grown up and she’s stuck at home with only the kitchen wall to talk to.
Shirley dreams of a better life, free from the chains of her domestic boredom and an unappreciative husband. When her best friend suggests a trip to Greece, Shirley packs her bags, leaves a note on the cupboard door and heads off for a fortnight of rest and relaxation.
In Greece, she meets Costas, rediscovers herself, finds happiness and everything she has been missing. She realises that there is more to life than the dull, mundane existence she leads back home. Now, Shirley has a big decision to make.
a sparkle in her eye
In his citation at the CATS, Guardian critic Mark Fisher said: ” Sally Reid made it feel like she was chatting to each of us individually. Alone on the stage, she made the big Pitlochry auditorium seem as intimate as her kitchen.
“With a downbeat wit, she played Shirley Valentine, the neglected Liverpool housewife, with charm, humour and a sparkle in her eye. She earned big laughs, but it was her unaffected honesty and emotional truth that made this a masterclass in acting.”
Listing
Shirley Valentine
Lyceum Theatre, Grindlay Street EH3 9AX. Phone booking: 0131 248 4848
Wed 12 – Sat 29 June 2024
Tue – Sat: 7.30pm; Mats Weds (not 12) & Sat: 2.30pm.
Tickets and details: Book here.
ENDS
