Upstaged Rating: ⭐⭐⭐
Reviewer: Daniel Shipman
Sheila’s Island is a reworking of Tim Firth’s 1992 comedy Neville’s Island which, rather than revolving around four middle-aged, middle management men, revolves around the same characters rendered as women. The quartet are on a corporate away day in the Lake District when they are stranded together on a small island with no food, bar a single concealed sausage.
Beyond that, the plot is thin on the ground which would be fine if it was making room for in-depth character studies or non-stop hilarity, but unfortunately, it is not. The seeds of thematic gold are sewn but never reaped. There is the empty nester pining after her children; the career-driven woman in late middle age who never married and is now wondering whether she has made the right decision; the working-class battle-axe who rose above her station; and the sweet soul who found religion whilst recovering from a breakdown and grieving for her mother. Each of the characters contains layers of material that is ripe for further exploration, but unfortunately none of them ever really gets it.
Instead, the audience is met with jokes about the menopause, unresolved implications of marital infidelity, and an unexpectedly dark twist in the final act which sets out to be shocking but ends up merely being a jarring change of tone. There are laughs here too, but for a comedy that is short on other content, they are simply too few and far between to sustain a two-hour play.
I applaud Firth for attempting to redress the lack of middle-aged/older female characters on stages across the country, although I can’t help but wonder what might have been possible if he had handed the reigns to a female playwright who had first-hand experience of the subject matter. Sheila’s Island isn’t a bad night out at the theatre, but it could have been so much more.
-Daniel Shipman
Sheila’s Island runs at The Lowry until Saturday 2 April 2022.