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Director’s Cut A view from director Christine Rye

I have been a member of the Wheatsheaf players for 9 years, starting in the youth group and joining the adults at 18. During that time I’ve had a go at almost everything – acting, set-building, stage managing, technical and front of house. So naturally my next challenge would be directing.

I’ll be honest, before reading the script for Shirley Valentine I was unfamiliar with the story. I hadn’t heard of the show or the film. So I was

a little nervous about directing this one-woman show. However, I was extremely lucky to have a team of talented people to help out!

I think Shirley Valentine is a wonderfully written story about a wom-an frustrated with life. It’s a story every woman can relate to at some point – the feeling of wanting to break free and escape. However, the sadness of Shirley’s monotonous life is balanced by the comedy and humour throughout.

I would like to thank Jo, for being there just in case! And for giving Heather her golden glow.

Thanks to Steve and Joe. Without their talent and imagination this set would never look as fantastic as it does. With the help and hard work from the Wheatsheaf Wednesday team they transport us from a kitchen in Liverpool to a tranquil beach in Greece.

But the biggest thank-you has to go to Heather. She is a superb actress and is so utterly believable as Shirley Valentine. On more than one occasion during rehearsals I got so caught up in the story I believed it was just a real woman telling me about her life and had to keep reminding myself it wasn’t real!

I could never have done this without her.

Shirley Valentine has made me laugh and almost brought me to tears. I hope you truly enjoy this as much as I have.

Christine

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Cast Profile

Heather Evans It has been over a year since Heather has been on the stage at the Wheatsheaf. She took the job of Artistic Director last year with the committee and since then has been busy behind the scenes – in fact she directed or produced every play at the Wheatsheaf last year. Even though she has been absent from the stage for a year, you are very likely to recognise Heather. She has taken parts in such plays as ‘Death By Fatal Murder’, ‘Everything in the Garden’, ‘The Holmes Service’, ‘Educating Rita’, ’Spider’s Web’, ’Summer’s End’ and the pantomimes ‘Silly Billy and the Giant Rabbit’ and ‘The Wizard and the Magic Gloves’. With the youth group she has directed ‘A Grimm Night for Hans Christian Anderson’ and ‘Ebony Scrooge’. Directorial credits for main house productions include ‘An Inspector Calls’, ‘Nobody’s Perfect’, ‘Death By Fatal Murder’ and the critically acclaimed ‘Bouncers’. To get back on stage after such a long time can be a daunting pro-spect, but there is nothing like a challenge and this one woman show is certainly that! Heather says that ‘Shirley Valentine is like an old friend. It was almost 10 years ago that I first had the opportunity to perform this play and I loved it then. There is so much emotion in the role; you laugh, cry, love and drink the odd glass of Riesling with her. It real-ly is a gift and I am so excited to be able to play this part’. She continues, ‘to paraphrase Willy Russell, I used to be the director, I used to serve the drinks – now I’m Shirley Valentine again – will you join me for a drink?’

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Thank You As always with a production there are many people we need to thank for all the work they put in. You can see the fabulous set - a huge thank you to Steve and Joe for making both Liverpool and Greece so believable! Rock plays his own part in the play - so thank you to Fay Gibbs for making him so well and sturdily! Dennis Evans has donated more paint than B&Q which will get used is so many productions here at the Wheatsheaf - thank you! The kitchen has been made complete by the white blob on the left - thanks to Graham from M. A. R. R. S. for the washing machine. And last but by no means least, the music for tonight’s production is kindly donated by Amy Clark - a wonderful find from youtube.com. For those wanting to hear more of Amy’s material you can find her youtube channel at http://www.youtube.com/user/Jayney79. Thank you Amy!

All Change! Not quite all... But there have been a lot of changes in the staff at the Wheatsheaf players following this years Annual General Meeting. We say goodbye to Terry Doyle, Graham Shelton and Christine Rye from their positions as Chairman, Treasurer and Front of House Manager, respectively, and we welcome Georgia Darlison and Anthony Wilkes into the Treasurer and Front of House Manag-er jobs. The astute of you will have noticed that that leaves us short of a Chairman... If you relish a challenge and would like to apply for this position then please contact a member of staff.

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Shirley Valentine

By Willy Russell

Directed by Christine Rye

Act 1

Scene1—Shirley’s Kitchen

Scene 2—The same, three weeks later

Interval

Act 2

A Beach in Greece

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Cast

Shirley Bradshaw Heather Evans

Crew

Continuity Joanne Russell

Lighting & Sound Design Stephen Hocking

Lighting & Sound Operation Richard Taylor Lewis Sykes

Stage Manager Kirsten Shelton Stephen Hocking

Set Design Stephen Hocking

Set Construction Stephen Hocking Joe Lawless Wheatsheaf Wednesday Wheatsheaf Crew

Graphic Design Heather Evans Chris Evans

Music

‘I Want to Break Free’ performed by Amy Clark Used with kind permission of the performer

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About the Author

A profile of Willy Russell Willy Russell was born in Whiston, near Liverpool in 1947, grew up in a left-wing household and left school with one O-level in English. His dad, at various times, worked in the mines, in a factory, ran a fish and chip shop and also ran a library-on-a-bicycle, transporting books in two suitcases strapped to the sides of his bike.

"When I grew up, on an estate, we didn't live in a classic extended family, but there were all my aunt-ies, cousins, my mum and granny. It was after the war and all the men were on shift in the facto-ries, so I was brought up in a very maternalistic atmosphere, and I suppose I must have spent a lot of time sitting un-noticed but absorbing the women's view of the world. You know what adults are like when they're all together, talking; they think a small child isn't interested or isn't taking it in. But I think I did - not by consciously doing so. I think I absorbed it through my pores"

At his Mum's suggestion he became a women's hairdresser when he left school at 15 and although maintains he was never very good at it, Willy eventually managed a shop in Kirkby. He was a hairdresser for six years, an experience, he says, that made him an indifferent dresser of hair but 'a good listener'. When he left he did a variety of jobs, including stacking stockings in the warehouse at 'Bear Brand' and a brief spell in the Ford car factory at Hailwood cleaning girders.

He originally began writing as a songwriter, composing songs in the folk idiom. Many of his songs were performed at local folk clubs playing in a semi-pro capacity on the same kind of circuit where the likes of Billy Connolly, Barbara Dickson, Mike Harding, Jasper Carrot and Victoria Wood cut their teeth. He contributed songs and sketches to local radio programmes. Willy also ran a folk club for a time. He had one song recorded on a Radio Enterprise LP 'A Sampler of Britain' and he and his group The Kirkby Town 3 performed on Granada TV in 1967 - losing out in a talent competition that also featured an early incarnation of Tyrannosaurus Rex and was ultimately won by the band Amen Corner.

He also collaborated on a stage documentary ' A Lancashire Story' (performed at Notre Dame College, Liverpool in 1969). At the age of twenty, he decided to complete his education and went to college in order to improve his qualifications, after which he became a schoolteacher in Toxteth. Willy met Annie (now his wife) and at her prompting, he became more interested in drama, started going to plays and began to write.

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His ambition to be a serious writer was fired and further focused when he saw a production of John McGrath's Unruly Elements at Liverpool's Everyman Theatre in 1971. What he particularly noticed about this play was 'the poetry of common speech', and this has been a hallmark of his own work.

His first play, Keep Your Eyes Down, was produced in 1971, but he made his name with John, Paul, George, Ringo … and Bert, a musical about the Beat-les. This had been commissioned by the Liverpool Everyman where it ran for a (then) unprecedented eight weeks before transferring to the West End where it won the Evening Standard and London Theatre Critics awards for the best musi-cal of 1974. Thereafter his plays have won widespread popular and critical ac-claim.

Two of his best-known plays have female protagonists, Educating Rita, which was inspired by his own experience of returning to education, is about a young woman working class woman who decides to study English with the Open University. Much of the comedy arises from her fresh, unschooled reaction to the classics of English literature, but she is never patronised by the author, who recognises from his own experience that education is a means of escape from one's own circumstances. Shirley Valentine is also about escape, and takes the form of a monologue by a housewife before and after a transforming holiday in Greece. Both plays were made into very successful films from Willy Russell's own screenplays, featuring the actresses who originally created the roles on stage (Julie Walters, and Pauline Collins each of whom won an Oscar nomination for their respective roles, as did Russell for his Educating Rita screenplay).

Willy Russell's other huge theatrical success has been Blood Brothers, 'a Liverpudlian folk opera' about a pair of twins separated at birth and brought up in completely different environments. It continues to enjoy a very long run in London's West End and played a two year run on Broadway. The British touring version continues to play to packed houses and many foreign productions have been produced, including Korea and Japan.

Willy Russell has also written plays for television, the most famous of which was Our Day Out, an affecting story of a group of Liverpool schoolchildren on a coach outing with two teachers. This play has been enacted by tens of thousands of school kids across the UK (including here at the Wheatsheaf).

The Wrong Boy, Willy Russell's first novel, was published in 2000 to critical acclaim and, as with his all his plays, has been translated into many different languages.

Willy Russell continues to live and work in his home city of Liverpool and in 2009 is currently working on a number of projects.

About the Author

A profile of Willy Russell

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Can you fill this space?

The Wheatsheaf Players are always looking for new talent, whether on stage or off.

If you would like to be involved with the theatre in any capacity from actor to stage hand, barman to set builder please contact a member of staff or give us a call on 02476 456179

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Coming Soon...

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