Play: Folk

Patrick Bridgeman, Connie Walker and Chloe Harris

'There's nowt so queer as folk' runs the adage, and Tom Wells's new play is a three-hander in which the three characters all display some eccentricity, oddness and the unexpected.

First there's Winnie (Connie Walker), an Irish religious sister, doing the Lord's work in a deprived northern neighbourhood in England. Then there's Stephen (Patrick Bridgman), a quiet man and Winnie's best friend.

As the play opens, they are both chez-Winnie, having attended a funeral.

Christ as the Sacred Heart adorns the wall and a cushion; a large crucifix is suspended; there's a photo of Pope John Paul II, other religious images, and several statues, including Mary and St Francis.

Bob Bailey's set communicates a straightforward and traditional faith.

Winnie then cracks open the Guinness and both she and Patrick start to sing a raucous Irish ballad to Patrick's accompaniment on guitar. This is their Friday ritual and they're anticipating their session together with glee.

Then a brick comes through the window and the routine is shattered.

The culprit emerges from the shadows. Kayleigh (Chloe Harris), a fifteen-year old from a broken home, is recognised by Winnie. She remembers her from the local Catholic primary school as a good girl.

The play proceeds to explore the reasons for Kayleigh's act and how the trio start to bond through their shared love of folk music, brought to moving life by James Frewer's sensitive score and their playing and singing.

The three actors are excellent and Tom Wells' play is first-rate in plot, language and ritual, as well as its range of tone from Falstaffian comedy to pathos.

Connie Walker's Winnie is a force of nature, a nimble-footed lover of life for all her padded garments which give the lie to her real-life slender frame. She has a sparkling eye and speaks with a beautiful Waterford accent. The fags and booze aren't helping her angina and a medic present in the audience congratulated her on her utterly convincing panicked angina attack.

Patrick Bridgman's Stephen is a quiet, buttoned-up man who has hidden much of his real identity. The blossoming of his relationship with Chloe Harris's intuitive and straightforward Kayleigh provides an emotional ending to the play. I would write more but that would be a spoiler.

As the title Folk partly suggests, this play explores how three troubled souls come together and navigate their challenges in a form of communion. Festive moments - the Friday sessions, Winnie's 'happy nuniversary' (celebrating her 35th anniversary as a nun), and the projected folk concert they will all perform in on Easter Day - all emphasise the importance of this coming together. And of course, the communal singing of the folk songs does this, too. There's also a lovely competitive tin-whistle scene between Stephen and Kayleigh.

Winnie is the fulcrum of grace in the play with a Franciscan gift of love and compassion and this is, indeed, the grace-note of the piece, as it comes to be shared by all three.

On the day of seeing this, I heard that another play about a combative and courageous religious sister was just about to open in London: We Wait in Joyful Hope. The beautiful title comes from the priest's words after the Lord's Prayer during Mass. Kevin Rowland from Dexy's Midnight Runners has also just recorded a collection of beloved Irish folk songs he heard his parents and their friends sing when he was growing up.

People were singing along to the songs of Folk under their breath, caught up by the spirit. It was excellent to see a play which explored the crucial element of humanity present within Catholicism.

Folk continues at Hull Truck Theatre until Saturday and then ends its tour at the Watford Palace Theatre.

Dr Philip Crispin is a Lecturer in Drama at the University of Hull

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