Wondering what has happened to her youth and feeling stagnant and in a rut, Shirley Valentine feels as if her family treats her more like a servant.

When her best friend wins a competition for two to Greece, she packs her bags, leaves a note on the cupboard door in the kitchen and heads for a fortnight of rest and relaxation.

In Greece, she rediscovers everything she had been missing about her existence in England, and when the vacation is over, she decides not to return, ditching her friend at the airport and going back to the hotel where she’d been staying to ask for a job.