Shirley Valentine (film) seem recycled directly from greeting cards . . . If there is a shred of plausibility in the film, it comes from Bernard Hill's performance as Shirley Valentine's husband. He isn't a bad bloke, just a tired and indifferent one, and when he follows his wife to Greece at the end of the film there are a few moments so truthful that they show up the artifice of the rest." 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
James Shirley Shirley went to Ireland, under the patronage apparently of the Earl of Kildare. Three or four of his plays were produced by his friend John Ogilby in Dublin in the Werburgh Street Theatre, the first ever built in Ireland and at the time of Shirley's visit only one year old. During his Dublin stay, Shirley wrote "The Doubtful Heir", "The Royal Master", "The Constant Maid", and "St. Patrick for Ireland". In his absence from London, Queen Henrietta's Men sold off a dozen of his plays to the stationers, who published them in the late 1630s. Shirley, when he returned to