Lyndhurst Drama & Music Society 
Vernon Theatre, Lyndhurst 
Darren Funnell 
24 April 2025
It’s not every day you find yourself watching four middle-aged women stranded on an island with nothing but a compass, a questionable map, cryptic confusion reluctantly surviving without a mobile signal, still recovering from flashbacks of office icebreakers, laced with passive aggression and years of unspoken corporate resentment.
Sheila’s Island, by Tim Firth, currently playing at Vernon Theatre by the Lyndhurst Drama and Musical Society until 26th April 2025 is a wonderfully relatable, often riotous exploration of female friendship, middle-aged frustration, and the perils of trusting Sheila. Somewhere between a farce and a therapy session, it leaves you laughing – and towards the end a little damp around the edges, channelling a frankly bizarre, Bonfire Night ‘Lord of the Flies’ beat. No actual orienteering is achieved. Though a single sausage takes on the mantle of greatness.
The set is also something of a wonder. If you ever sat in a sinking boat and thought, I wonder what it is like on Sheila’s Island, then the first thing that grabs you is what an amazing job the small staging, props and lighting team have done bringing it to life. More greenery than a November in the Lake District, actual trees on stage used to great effect and rock pools. I kid you not. Rock pools! Lighting design that evokes weather and event. A cavernous rucksack that is a shop full of props. Top-notch costumes. In celebrating their 75th anniversary year they are frankly, and delightfully, showing off. Full credit to the team. I am amazed by what 13 people (including cast) have achieved, if I am honest.
Thankfully it’s not just a great scene-stealing stage. There is some deceptively clever direction from Stevie Parker that moves with the play, literally taking it to different levels, visually ensuring that not one scene looks or feels contrived or boring. It looks good, feels fresh, and the emotional beats are hit time and time again.
Equally, with the cast, the chemistry and bickering feels authentic, the laughs are well-earned, and even the quieter moments – of reflection, of vulnerability, of someone admitting they don’t know how a compass works – feel grounded and real. Yes, perhaps that’s it. Even at its most bizarre, this play feels like it’s happening in real-time, and the audience a unstructured observer. If you have a play about being stuck on an island, the audience needs to feel they are stuck on an island too.
Where you have clearly defined character tropes and types, the audience leans into the character that best represents what they would be like if they found themselves using a rock to bash a fork into a Tupperware branch to make a flag. I am sure this will be different for everyone but, for me, Sarah Short as Denise, the reluctant participant with a PhD in sarcasm, steals every scene with her deadpan delivery and slow-burning disdain for the outdoors and finding/not finding a McDonalds and was superb. If eye-rolling was a sport, she would win the medal. I am not sure what that says about me, however.
Julie, played by Cally Van Der Pauw, is the sort of precise middle manager that wraps detail around her in a slightly cookie way to stave off issues elsewhere. It is a lovely warm, kind, frustrated performance all wrapped up in multiple freezer bags and very engaging simplicity.
Faye, played by Ingrid Bond, is initially introduced as a ‘Christian in a cagoule’ which is an intentional caricature, along with some backbiting about her having to take a 13-month holiday. Cleverly the play does not leave her hanging there. Ingrid has the farthest to travel in the running time and where she ends up is poignant, if unguessable but she is certainly a convincing twitcher.
And then to Sheila – she of the island! Played with just the right balance of delusion and denial by Di Buck, she delivers motivational quotes and crossword edge. Di captures this intelligent, overthinking, rabbit-in-the-hat, hang dog, ‘I sank the boat’ character so well she should get a patent.
It’s always a pleasure to be at the Vernon Theatre in the company of the Lyndhurst Drama & Musical Society. It’s a wonderful group and if you are in the area, look to the programme to get more involved. Whilst this production has made me no more inclined to go on an outdoor HR sponsored team building weekend, and it is worth mentioning there are some adult themes in this play, it does end up being a visual and performance ‘hoorah’ for their 75th Anniversary year. Excellent, well done. I would have eaten the sausage. Not the pizza. No. Not the pizza.
Sheila’s Island is playing on the 25th and 26th April at the Vernon Theatre, Lyndhurst. Remember now – no woman is an island.
