Review Roundup: What Did the Critics Think of Sheridan Smith in SHIRLEY VALENTINE?

Shirley Valentine, the celebrated one-woman play written by Willy Russell, is the joyous, life-affirming story of the woman who got lost in marriage and motherhood, the woman who wound up talking to the kitchen wall whilst cooking her husband's chips and egg. But Shirley still has a secret dream. And in her bag, an airline ticket. One day she may just leave a note saying: 'Gone! Gone to Greece.'

Sheridan Smith appears in the latest revival of a woman's quest to find herself after years of boredom and frustration. But what did the critics think?

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BroadwayWorld: Aliya Al-Hassan: Russell's writing is inherently very funny and Smith mines every last drop of comedy. Often she tackles the show more as if she is performing a very slick stand-up routine, rather than a play. The audience is her confidente and she revels in the reactions, more than once fighting not to corpse. This interaction seems to galvanise her performance; this is a role she seems born to play.

Daily Mail: Patrick Marmion: What Smith smashes here is the story's timeless element of what Shirley calls 'unused life' - paths we haven't taken, regrets we wish we'd had the courage to set right and empty obligations we should've shaken off long before. She gives an enormously sweet, touching and vulnerable performance that's also joyful, powerful and eye-moistening.

Financial Times: Alice Saville: Everything about director Matthew Dunster and designer Paul Wills' gorgeous staging is pitched between naturalism and too-bright intensity, the saturated pastel colours seeming to come from within Valentine's heated imagination. Smith delivers the play's closing manifesto for living a fuller life with her whole body in a sun-drenched inducement to "Rage, rage against the dying of the light." It's a cliché to describe something as life-affirming. But the world really does feel like a brighter, more exciting place after a couple of hours in Valentine's company.

The Stage: Sam Marlowe: Dunster keeps it all cooking nicely, sometimes literally - we can actually smell the Crisp 'n Dry. And Smith has no trouble winning our hearts. Women like Shirley - working class, middle-aged - are still routinely overlooked, on stage and off. But watching her follow her well-worn path of self-discovery again, I couldn't help but be reminded of another Russell creation - the mother of Educating Rita's titular heroine who, at a pub sing-song, reflects desolately that "there must be better songs to sing than this". There are fresher ways of telling Shirley's story. There are better plays than this.

The Guardian: Arifa Akbar: The light and froth is a cunning trick, the play's core crisis revealing itself in measures. When it does, it feels real and painful. The deeper, existential elements are powered by Smith's disarming and quietly dazzling performance. She mines every ounce of cheeky comedy but also builds such surreptitious and organic emotional undercurrents that we buy every moment, and the play is eternally relevant.

Shirley Valentine is at the Duke Of Yorks' Theatre until 3 June

Photo Credit: John Wilson

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