Kay Mellor’s play features a working-class woman of a certain age caught in an unfulfilling marriage and yearning for romance. Not nearly as well known as Shirley Valentine – even though it was cast in a comic vein and adapted for the screen in 2010 – maybe it ought to be.
Betty, played with no-nonsense charm by Katherine Dow Blyton, is a dutiful wife and mother who, dressed in a pink two-piece on the day of her son’s wedding, takes a life-changing detour into her loft. As she rummages among its dusty old boxes and suitcases, it becomes a portal, of a kind, back to a more vital past self.
