Carol Birch has reprised her role in Willy Russell’s one-woman play, ‘Shirley Valentine’.She takes to the stage tomorrow night at Daylesford Theatre for a three-night run, exploring the middle-aged Liverpudlian housewife’s range of emotions with insight and nuance.The BMDS Charitable Trust is putting on the production to raise funds for its scholarship programme.It plans to take the show on the road after it concludes at Daylesford on Saturday night.With her kids grown up and out of the house, her husband settled into a narrow routine that dictates what meal should be served on each day of the week, Shirley Brandshaw, née Valentine feels stagnant and stuck in a rut with only the kitchen wall to talk to.While making her husband fish and chips for supper, she reflects on her fearless, defiant youth and wonders where that young girl disappeared. Given an opportunity to travel with a friend to Greece, she overcomes her reservations, packs her bags, and heads for a fortnight of “not knowing” and “the excitement of something foreign”.What she finds is a new awareness and greater appreciation of who she is and what her existence can be with just a little effort on her part.The award-winning play premiered in 1986 in Liverpool’s Everyman Theatre before moving on to London’s West End, New York’s Broadway and a 1989 film adaptation directed by Lewis Gilbert.While it is a play of its time with narrow, rigid social roles long-since challenged the exploration of Shirley’s anxieties and self-doubts will still resonate with 21st century audiences. Who hasn’t questioned whether one could see in the mirror the person others see in one? Who hasn’t wondered where our younger selves have gone to and how our lives have become so little when we could have lived a bigger life? Who hasn’t come to realise that dreams are never where we expect them to be?Produced by Philip McIntosh, the current production is spare, with a static, minimalist set that, because of its ‘cartoonish’ character, enhances the vibrancy of Birch’s Shirley. A suburban kitchen is deftly drawn with a few black lines and a few props including frying eggs while the romance of the Greek islands is conjured with a deck chair and a taverna table and chairs against the roughly sketched background of the rugged coast.Showing her maturity as an actress, Birch maintains a steady pace as she keeps up the flow of amusing anecdotes and insightful reflections on life and love. The script is very funny, with numerous quotable quotes, and Birch gives the phrases room to breathe and the audience time to savour.If you don’t get a chance to see this warm, funny production this week, do be sure to look out for it at future venues. Even better, invite Birch and McIntosh to present the play under the auspices of your own business, club or organisation and get first dibs on the best seats.The BMDS Charitable Trust gives out annual bursaries to students in the performing arts and has donated close to $200,000 over the past decade.‘Shirley Valentine’ runs August 9 to 11 at the Daylesford Theatre at 8pm. Tickets, $25, are available an hour before curtain at the Daylesford box office.Useful website: www.bmds.bm.