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,
Rita Bennett Dexter Morgan's girlfriend. It is revealed early on that Rita was physically and sexually abused by Paul Bennett (Mark Pellegrino), her ex-husband and the father of her children, Astor (Christina Robinson) and Cody (Preston Bailey). Dexter's sister Debra Morgan answered a domestic violence call and saved her life. Rita, who is ignorant of Dexter's secret life as a serial killer, appears regularly throughout the first season as his main source of support. She plays a much larger role in the episode "Return to Sender", in which Paul is released from prison and demands to be at Astor's birthday party. Rita