Pitlochry Festival Theatre - Shirley Valentine.

The Guardian 24 October 2022

Willy Russell’s 1986 monologue is addressed to a kitchen wall. Stuck with domestic chores and a rigid catering schedule – if it’s Thursday, it must be mince – the 42-year-old Shirley Bradshaw has no one else to talk to. The chat is not great, but at least the wall won’t answer back.

In the title role of Elizabeth Newman’s heart-rending production, Sally Reid treats the idea lightly. Her Shirley is bright enough to know talking to the wall is as whimsical as it is desperate, a joke made humourless by repetition. She glides over it for the bittersweet foible it is. [READ MORE]

By Mark Fisher

MARK FISHER is a freelance theatre critic and feature writer based in Edinburgh and has written about theatre in Scotland since the late-1980s. He is a theatre critic for The Guardian, a former editor of The List magazine and a frequent contributor to the Scotsman and other publications. He is the co-editor of the play anthology Made in Scotland (1995), and the author of The Edinburgh Fringe Survival Guide (2012) and How to Write About Theatre (2015) – all Bloomsbury Methuen Drama. He is also the editor of The XTC Bumper Book of Fun for Boys and Girls and What Do You Call That Noise? An XTC Discovery Book (both Mark Fisher Ltd).