Shirley Valentine, 42-year-old put-upon mother and housewife, leaves the drudgery of cooking dinner for her husband, packs her bags and heads for the sun. The note on the kitchen table reads "Gone to Greece back in two weeks." "It is a simple and brilliant idea...the profound and perennial point of the comedy is the problem we seem to have contemplating the idea of a woman alone - in a pub, on a beach, in a restaurant. This is what Shirley learns to combat as she unravels her own sexual and social identity. The play is not only funny, it is also moving." (Michael Coveney, Financial Times) One for the Road "starts...with the mid-life hero torn between the security of married life in a dormer bungalow on a northern housing estate and dreams of being a rucksacked super-tramp. Mr Russell writes with knowledgeable venom about a world where Beethoven Underpass leads to Wagner Walkway and where anyone who doesn't join Weight Watchers or the Ramblers Club is regarded as a social deviant." (Francis King, Sunday Telegraph)
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Review:
Willy Russell's plays... speak to even the critical heart.' Libby Purves, The Times, 28.07.10 'When Shirley blossoms on her sneakily planned Greek holiday, her feminimity unfurls disarmingly, and there are moments of pathos throughout.' Henry Hitchings, Evening Standard, 28.07.10 'You peer into these windows onto other lives, and see your own world partially reflected back at you. Highly recommended.' Dominic Cavendish, Daily Telegraph, 29.07.10
"About this title" may belong to another edition of this title.
- PublisherMethuen Drama
- Publication date1988
- ISBN 10 0413189503
- ISBN 13 9780413189509
- BindingPaperback
- Number of pages112
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Rating