Chesil Theatre 
Chesil Theatre, Winchester 
Anne Waggott 
30 November 2025
Shirley Bradshaw (née Valentine), aged 42, is a disenchanted Liverpudlian housewife, feeling trapped in her monotonous loveless marriage and mundane life, wistfully pining for the loss of her exuberant and adventurous younger self. When a friend invites her on a holiday to Greece, initially Shirley resists the temptation to up sticks and go… until, pushed to her last limit, she leaves her life (and husband) behind on a whim, travels to Greece, meets a charmingly flirtatious Greek taverna owner, and finds herself, her passion for life… and more besides…!
Chesil Bare Stage is a new initiative helping to raise funds for the New Chesil Theatre, an ambitious development to transform Chesil Theatre’s medieval church theatre into a modern and accessible for all community arts hub*. This production of the one-woman show Shirley Valentine was therefore performed with no set as such and minimal technical support, stripping back the production elements to showcase the script itself from master playwright Willy Russell – and the sheer unadulterated talent of both actor Eleanor Marsden and director Tom Humphreys.
The set was essentially a bare stage with minimalist stage dressing for Shirley’s kitchen or the Greek island, with the aesthetics enhanced by an excellent array of props, wigs and costumes that firmly showed the play was based in the 1980s. The lighting might have seemed basic, but it was oh so subtle during act 2 as the Greek sunset went down on the show.
Not only did Chesil Bare Stage: Shirley Valentine have reduced production elements, it also had a much shorter run than is usual for Chesil Theatre – just three performances rather than the usual eight. However, Eleanor put so much of herself into her mesmerising and outstanding performance, I can understand why – she must be exhausted now! With a two hour monologue, there was so much dialogue to learn and deliver – and it was all done to absolute perfection, with an array of accurate accents and individualised characteristics, from the protagonist’s Scouse accent through a range of Northern and extremely posh voices, as Shirley mimicked the other characters in her memoirs.
The accents flowed so seamlessly and faultlessly that I have no idea which (if any) of them are Eleanor’s own! Her energy never wavered and she showed exquisite comic timing, both visually and vocally, whilst still adding in moments of reflective pauses, the air heavy with emotion, adding extra dynamics to an astonishing performance. Her storytelling was superb – I could have watched and listened to her all day, as the time flew by.
Monologues are extremely challenging at the best of times – there’s nowhere to hide and nobody to help you out if you lose your train of thought. However, not only was Eleanor exposed to bare stage conditions in Chesil Theatre’s intimate venue, but during this highly focused performance there were additional challenges of a delayed curtain up (with expected punters held up by pre-Christmas parking difficulties), and the performance being halted mid-scene when a medical emergency occurred in the audience (my very best wishes to the person affected). The way Eleanor picked up the action and dialogue after the restart, precisely and identically to her performance just before the enforced break, going back to a good place to pick up the narrative again, proved how dedicated her rehearsal process has been and how she and Tom have worked so hard together to create such an incredible production.
The staging might have been minimalist – but there was nothing understated about the acting! Eleanor’s beautifully nuanced poignant performance was full of wry comic observations, acerbic wit and emotional pathos. It will long live in my memory… although I’m not sure that the words “Christopher Columbus discovers…” will ever have quite the same meaning again!
(* More information can be found about the fund raising efforts for the New Chesil Theatre on the Chesil Theatre website here.)
