12 Angry Women put folklore in the dock

The Welkin (National Theatre, Lyttelton) Verdict: Intense murder trial by matron ★★★★✩

IT’S 1759 and all eyes are on the welkin — the sky — waiting for the return of Halley’s comet.

More is known about its path, thousands of miles away, one character notes, than about the inner workings of a woman. That is what’s on trial in Lucy Kirkwood’s thumpingly great new play in the National’s Lyttelton.

Sally (Ria Zmitrowicz — brilliantly boisterous, terrifying and almost rabid) is accused of murdering an 11-year-old girl. A ‘jury of matrons’ is assembled to confirm whether Sally’s pregnant; if she is, she’ll be spared hanging.

Kirkwood is a bit of a genius, chopping human stories out of U.S.-China relations, the Large Hadron Collider, nuclear power and, now, midwifery. Think Tom

On trial: Sally (Zmitrowicz) Stoppard, but not so smug and genuinely entertaining.

Here, instead of 12 angry men, we’ve got 12 grumbling women.

They bicker hilariously in Georgian slang: one loose woman is accused of ‘joining giblets with sailors’. We hear advice for ‘steaming wombs’ and anecdotes of menopausal women bursting into flames.

What a fascinating portrait of an entirely female domain in a man’s world. It’s a clash of science and lived experience, men versus women.

Cecilia Noble again proves the funniest performer on the London stage; Haydn Gwynne delivers perfect snooty. It was only Maxine Peake, essentially the Henry Fonda in this jury room, who left me cold.

She’s the crux of the matronly intelligence in this ‘trial’, and the story which is revealed about her is shockingly rough. But Peake added little more than a wonky Norfolk accent.

But there is still some fine, hilarious and deeply troubling drama to be savoured.

The Welkin will be screened live in cinemas on May 21 (ntlive.nationaltheatre.org.uk).