Shirleymander

Tracy-Ann Oberman plays Dame Shirley Porter with style in Gregory Evans's bold drama of power, personality, ambition, delusion and downfall. Dame Shirley ran Westminster City Council in the Thatcher years and, she hoped, in similar resolute style. But Dame Shirley, in this account, lacks the brain to count the consequences of her actions which is why, after selling off graveyards and council flats, she's astonished to be beaten at the polls and doesn't foresee how an assiduous local government employee could dig up enough evidence to make her flee the country.