A date with West End

Meera Syal's Shirley Valentine has packed her bags. She is on the move to the West End. Willy Russell's comedy about the middle-aged Liverpudlian housewife who finds herself (and dishy Kostas) on a Greek island was a sell-out success at the Menier Chocolate Factory and is certain to travel well. I must admit to having become a Meera/Shirley devotee. I interviewed her before the show opened (she was terrified), reviewed its first night (adored it) and wonder what terms she and Shirley are on now? Syal says she has finally managed to relax and revel in Shirley's transformation from "dowdy caterpillar to goddess of a butterfly".

When we last spoke, she expressed empathy for Shirley. But in her house near Epping (the sort of suburb that invites learner drivers to reverse round its quiet corners), nothing suggests her inner Shirley Valentine. We give her kitchen the benefit of the doubt — stare at it together. No blank wall to talk to as Shirley does. "That's deliberate!" Syal says. The wall beams at us, studded with half a dozen plaster suns. "I am a bit obsessed with them," she says. They are perfect symbols for her own warm nature.

Syal's 17-year-old daughter Milli (who has already been in a Bollywood film) is hanging out in the house too. She and her friends have seen the show several times. Milli loved the play and told her mum: "I don't want to waste my life!" This Syal thought was a "brilliant thing to say". She had wondered whether a young audience might miss the point.

She is not going to get an exotic summer holiday this year, because she has just accepted a part in Rafta, Rafta by Ayub Khan-Din. She plays the mother who has "stoicism" in common with Shirley ("It amazes me, the ability women have to take on the neuroses, pain and worries of other people and being so neglected themselves"). She believes Shirley Valentine will put theatregoers in the mood for fleeing the country. Perhaps there will be a mass exodus to Greece?

Shirley Valentine runs until October 20 at Trafalgar Studios, London.