Shirley Valentine Shirley Valentine Shirley Valentine is a one-character play by Willy Russell. Taking the form of a monologue by a middle-aged, working class Liverpool housewife, it focuses on her life before and after a transforming holiday abroad. Wondering what has happened to her youth and feeling stagnant and in a rut, Shirley finds herself regularly alone and talking to the wall while preparing an evening meal of egg and chips for her emotionally distant husband. When her best friend offers to pay for a trip-for-two to Greece, she packs her bags, leaves a note on the cupboard door in the kitchen,
James Shirley in London in April 2017. 'The Glories of Our Blood and State' (also known under the later title 'The Glories of Our Birth and State') from "The Contention of Ajax and Ulysses" was often set to music, and played at the coronation of George IV in 1821. James Shirley James Shirley (or Sherley) (18 September 1596 – 29 October 1666) was an English dramatist, poet, and playwright. He belonged to the great period of English dramatic literature, but, in Charles Lamb's words, he "claims a place among the worthies of this period, not so much for any transcendent genius in