This week will be different. I have a long/short story for you which I will post in instalments day by day. Should you feel the need to share these posts with your friends, real or social-media virtual, feel free.
A few of us were chatting recently, and the classic play/film, Shirley Valentine, came under discussion. Most people know it from the film adaptation of the Willy Russell one-woman play, and I must admit, I’m one of them. I don’t mean I am a one-woman play, I mean I never saw it at the theatre, but I remember walking past when it was on in London in the late 1980s, and wondering who was playing the part this week? The star name seemed to change so regularly, gradually becoming less ‘star’ as the run ran.
Originally, the play was commissioned by the Everyman Theatre in Liverpool, and premiered in 1986, with Noreen Kershaw directed by Glen Walford. It moved to London two years later and was released as a film in 1989. Now you know.
However, when we were discussing the story, the question around the table was: What would Shirley’s experience of Greece be if the story happened now?
So, with thanks to those who fuelled the discussion, here in a seemingly never-ending set of slightly sceptical scenes, is the movie treatment for ‘SV 2025’ which comes with the subtitle read in a gravelly voice: ‘Just when you thought it was safe to return to Booking.com…’
(If there’s any problem with my using the name Shirley, I can easily change it to Burly because, let’s face it, she’s put on a few pounds since 1989.)
Act One – Liverpool
We start in a similar way to the original, only the dog opposite has eaten Julia McKenzie, and who can blame him?
Shirley does her shopping online, so she rarely goes out, and she’s booked her holiday with Booking.com and earned a Genius discount of 0.05%. She had to do it this way, because there’s now a coffee shop where the travel agent used to be, and that’s where the husband works, because every industry in the area has now been given over to coffee shops with the exception of one Subway, and the hotel which now houses disgruntled voters from Clacton who had to flee Farage, and because there were too many small boats in the south and never was seen a departing farage on any.
Escaping the post-Tory sorry-story state of the country with no O, Shirley receives her booking confirmation and braces herself for a 3.30 am flight from the most obscure airport possible because it was the cheapest, and prepares to fly to Greece. Only, it’s not Mykonos this time, because it costs €1,200 a night to stay there, and that’s without breakfast. As she waits for the day to arrive, she does some last-minute shopping (online) and then, because the trains are on strike, has to walk to a post office to ensure her passport is sorted. Sadly, the nearest post office is 100 miles away, and she doesn’t yet qualify for a bus pass, so she’s tramping back in the rain when she sees her old schoolmate. Said old schoolmate is now a very respectable online chat-and-cam star who invented the straight equivalent of the Grindr app, and who does outcalls for rich clients, but only if they swear an affidavit stating they have never met Donald Trump. She gives our Shirl a cup of tea and a change of underwear before swiping right on her phone — and she’s away to her next client.
Getting There
The big day arrives, and Shirl’s off to the obscure airport for a night of hanging around, drinking cheap coffee for an exorbitant price and trying to stay awake. The family from Hull makes sure she does, what with the two-year-old off the leash, dad on the lash, and the five-year-old with a toothache. Mother doesn’t care; she’s on the Bacardi at three in the morning ’cos she’s on her hollibobs.
Shirl meets another friend who is to be her travelling companion, but who immediately strikes up a conversation with a transgender TikTok influencer on a mission to find the ‘authentic Greece’ and disappears with her/him/they/it/which/why. Shirl’s on her own for the rest of the week. Yay!
Flying with Budget Air is no budget activity. For a start, Shirl’s paid for her basic flight, she even paid to choose her seat and to get on first (just in case the thing takes off without her). Because she’s on her first ever holiday, she paid extra for a glass of warm water and a biscuit left over from the 1912 Antarctic expedition (well, Scott didn’t need it) and added a little more to have the right to an extra piece of luggage in the cabin which was taken off her at the gate anyway. She could have pre-ordered a snack from the in-flight catering department, but they only had anagrams on offer: Budgie tar, Airbed gut, and a Gabie turd, for which she might have needed a bite guard, and, to understand the kids in the next row, a brat guide. (These are all anagrams of Budget Air. It took me ages with the Scrabble board!)
Should there be an emergency on board a Be a Turgid flight, it’s £1.00 in the slot for the gas mask to come down, another £2.00 to use it, and £3.00 per hour to rent the lifejackets. Onboard toilets now cost £5.00 a go, so she doesn’t go, and you can’t use cash, only cards.
Four hours pass. Painfully.
And so, we land on a Greek island that isn’t Mykonos, and which isn’t Santorini, because you can’t get in there without a cruise ship, and it’s not actually Greece at all, but a backlot at Shepperton, apart from some cutaways which were filmed in Majorca on a set left over from ‘Evil Under the Sun.’ Whatever. Shirl’s now in Greece.
Continued tomorrow…
