The A Play, A Pie and A Pint season started this week and Siobhan and I went to the first offering at lunchtime.  After the half dozen concerts I've been to this month it was nice to be led back into drama by the mellifluous Welsh voices of the three woman cast of Leviathan.  Especially given the lovely text that Matthew Trevannion, the author, had given them.

Set in a council house garden on a fine sunny day we met Mavis, who described herself at one point as having been a functioning alcoholic, her daughter Karen who slumps in an armchair eyes closed most of the time, stirring every so often to deliver coherent but disturbing monologues and Hannah, Karen's daughter, who has narrowed down the potential father of her unborn child to a list of three.

There is a fourth character whom we never see.  This is a murderous moggie who is busy wiping out the birds that visit the garden.  I'm sure that's very important and that Mavis taking an injured but still breathing bird into the house towards the end of the play with the stated intention of nursing it back to health is crucial to our understanding of the work.

But I didn't understand anything by it.  On the other hand there's a great deal of humour and I loved the cut and thrust of the dialogue between Mavis and Hannah.  They argue over Hannah's way of life.  They argue over semantics - gypos versus travellers.  "Travellers!" says Hannah "I went to school with most of them."  They argue over Karen.  Hannah screaming that the woman needs her mental health sorted out while Mavis maintains she only needs to rest.

What's it all in aid of?  Who knows but it's very well done and mightily entertaining.