Museum Hours

A rather wonderful new play at the National Theatre,  The Welkin , examines the ostensibly straightforward question of a woman sentenced to death for murder who claims to be pregnant - which would mean that her sentence is commuted to transportation.  A jury of 12 women is then empanelled to make the decision about whether she is indeed with child or is seeking to evade the gallows through a ruse.  The piece brings together Enlightenment rationality, traditional medicine and midwifery, communal bonds and jealousies, class dynamics, an impersonal judicial system focused on property and authority, and the fearful power of a ravening mob - all mediated via the female body.  The central focus might be taken as the relative importance of facts and feelings in forming judgements and the baggage that each individual brings which influences the question that they think they are answering. Is it a simple factual question or a wider one about motive and character? Moreover all of