Substantially rewritten since it was first seen at West Yorkshire Playhouse last year, and all the better for it, this first play by social worker Judith Jones and journalist Beatrix Campbell achieves something rare: a considered and provoking examination of why women kill children. Significantly, is all done without resort to tabloid sensationalism. I never thought I would see a play featuring Myra Hindley that has integrity. But this is it.
That is not to say that it is entirely terrific theatre, or entirely a terrific night out. Some of the structuring in the opening scenes is clumsy, and the subject-matter means the play can be almost unbearable to watch. But, in a sense, that is partly Jones and Campbell's point: we find the killing of children by women such a transgressive act that we prefer to lock them away and try to forget about them, and, in the case of Hindley, throw away the key. Yet, as Hindley points out in the play, that achieves nothing: "What should be done with me? I have been locked away for nearly 40 years. I have been educated but nothing has been learned from me or required from me. And so, I remain punished but relieved of responsibility. I have privileged information about crime and complicity - but is it to be buried with me? I am the evidence." Well, the evidence is as lost and buried now as the bodies of some of her victims on Saddleworth Moor.
Jones and Campbell set up their arguments cunningly by placing the reflective and obviously troubled Hindley in the next-door cell to Gail, in jail for the manslaughter of her little daughter. Herself a victim of repeated sexual abuse by her father and his friends, and unprotected by her mother, Gail is clearly distressed, damaged and possibly dangerous, yet unlike Hindley will soon be let out on parole.
In less delicate and experienced hands than those of director Annie Castledine, this evening could backfire badly, but she judges it perfectly. This is a restrained and nuanced production, with an excellent performance from Gillian Wright as Gail and an absolutely stupendous one from Sharon Maughan as Myra.
· Until February 16. Box office: 020-7794 0022.
