The Welkin by Lucy Kirkwood

Rural Suffolk, 1759.
Haley’s comet is due to pass overhead. A young woman is sentenced to hang for a
heinous murder. When she claims to be pregnant, a jury of 12 local matrons have to
decide whether she is telling the truth, or trying to escape the noose. This is a time of
basic medicine and an entrenched system that disbelieves and condemns women on a
man’s word. The matrons wrestle with their new authority and draw on their own
experiences and beliefs to either defend or condemn her. The play is startling, funny,
powerful and thought provoking.