Shirley Valentine (film) Shirley Valentine (film) Shirley Valentine is an award-winning 1989 British romantic comedy-drama film directed by Lewis Gilbert. The screenplay by Willy Russell is based on his 1986 one-character play of the same title, which follows middle aged Shirley Valentine in an unexpected discovery of herself, and rekindling of her childhood dreams and youthful love of life. Pauline Collins reprises the titular lead role as middle-aged housewife Shirley, which she had previously played in the stage production in London's West End and on Broadway, and Tom Conti plays Costas Dimitriades, the owner of a Greek tavern with whom she has a
Andrea Dunbar Andrea Dunbar Andrea Dunbar (22 May 1961 – 20 December 1990) was a British playwright. She wrote "The Arbor" (1980) and "Rita, Sue and Bob Too" (1982), an autobiographical drama about the sexual adventures of teenage girls living in a run-down part of Bradford, West Yorkshire. She wrote most of the adaptation for the film "Rita, Sue and Bob Too" (1987). The "Mail on Sunday" described Dunbar as "a genius straight from the slums". Dunbar grew up on Brafferton Arbor on the Buttershaw council estate in Bradford with seven brothers and sisters. Both her parents had worked in the textile