Shirley Valentine gets Cork twist in Town Hall show

“I’m a workhorse,” says actress Norma Sheahan who will be in the City’s Town Hall Theatre this Friday and Saturday night, starring in Willy Russell’s hit play, Shirley Valentine.

It’s coming to Galway following a six-night run in Dublin’s Gaiety where it played to sell-out houses of 600 people – at 60 per capacity, as per restrictions in early October. The Cork-born actress who lives in Dublin is thrilled at the response.

After a year-and-a-half of rolling lockdowns, this play is resonating with audiences, she says with a laugh as she refers to one of its most famous scenes, where the lonely heroine, Shirley, speaks to the kitchen walls.

“People are sick of talking to themselves and to the walls and they can identify with Shirley. They’re dying to get out.”

Willy Russell’s play about a 45-year-old housewife who is trapped in a dreary marriage, living a mundane life, was made into a hit film in 1988, starring Julie Collins as the disaffected Shirley who suddenly decides to leave her Liverpool home and accompany a friend to a Greek island in search of adventure. What she encounters there changes her life.

For this new production of the play, Willy Russell worked with Norma to transfer the action from Liverpool to Cork, weaving in references to places such as Gurranabraher and with the Adelphi Cinema in Liverpool being replaced by Cork’s Imperial.

Russell is a songwriter as well as a playwright, Norma explains, and wanted the same resonance in the Cork references as had been in the original Liverpool ones.  The actor and writer had several sessions on Zoom and she was blown away by his support – he told her how much he loved her online sketches and sent her flowers when the show opened at the Gaiety.

For more, read this week’s Connacht Tribune.

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