About the Book
Rural Suffolk, 1759. As the country waits for Halley's Comet, Sally Poppy is sentenced to hang for a heinous murder. When she claims to be pregnant, a jury of twelve matrons are taken from their housework to decide whether she's telling the truth, or simply trying to escape the noose.
With only midwife Lizzy Luke prepared to defend the girl, and a mob baying for blood outside, the matrons wrestle with their new authority, and the devil in their midst.
Lucy Kirkwood's play The Welkin premiered at the National Theatre, London, in January 2020, directed by James Macdonald and featuring Maxine Peake and Ria Zmitrowicz.
'A superb new history play - a feminist courtroom drama that's equal parts Twelve Angry Men, The Crucible and The Vagina Monologues, plus a dash of searing, up-to-the-minute political and social commentary... a warm, humane and very funny piece, firmly anchored in women's everyday experience'
— Broadway World
'Brilliant, brave, bold and intelligent theatre. It is, for all the seriousness of its subject, often very funny yet at the close, profoundly moving'
— WhatsOnStage
'A mighty play: magnificent in its scope, depth and intricacy... a wise, funny, richly intelligent and generously ambitious play that asks, as all good history plays do, how far have we really come?'
— Financial Times
'Dazzles with its examination of the big, immovable structures that inflict violence on women... there is so much richness in its visual imagination'
— Guardian
'Ungoverned, furious, larky, layered... sheer gutsy audacity'
— Evening Standard
About the Author :
Lucy Kirkwood is a British playwright and screenwriter whose plays include: The Human Body (Donmar Warehouse, London, 2024); Rapture (promoted as That Is Not Who I Am, Royal Court Theatre, London, 2022); The Welkin (National Theatre, London 2020); Mosquitoes (National Theatre, 2017); The Children (Royal Court Theatre, 2016); Chimerica (Almeida Theatre & West End, 2013; winner of the 2014 Olivier Award for Best New Play, the 2013 Evening Standard Best Play Award, the 2014 Critics' Circle Best New Play Award, and the Susan Smith Blackburn Award); NSFW (Royal Court, 2012); small hours (co-written with Ed Hime; Hampstead Theatre, 2011); Beauty and the Beast (with Katie Mitchell; National Theatre, 2010); Bloody Wimmin, as part of Women, Power and Politics (Tricycle Theatre, 2010); it felt empty when the heart went at first but it is alright now (Clean Break & Arcola Theatre, 2009; winner of the 2012 John Whiting Award); Hedda (Gate Theatre, London, 2008); and Tinderbox (Bush Theatre, 2008).
She won the inaugural Berwin Lee UK Playwrights Award in 2013.
Review :
'A superb new history play - a feminist courtroom drama that's equal parts Twelve Angry Men, The Crucible and The Vagina Monologues, plus a dash of searing, up-to-the-minute political and social commentary... a warm, humane and very funny piece, firmly anchored in women's everyday experience' Broadway World; 'Brilliant, brave, bold and intelligent theatre. It is, for all the seriousness of its subject, often very funny yet at the close, profoundly moving' WhatsOnStage; 'A mighty play: magnificent in its scope, depth and intricacy... a wise, funny, richly intelligent and generously ambitious play that asks, as all good history plays do, how far have we really come?' Financial Times; 'Dazzles with its examination of the big, immovable structures that inflict violence on women... there is so much richness in its visual imagination' Guardian 'Ungoverned, furious, larky, layered... sheer, gutsy audacity' Evening Standard
