The Welkin is a courtroom drama that sets itself up as a winking feminist twist on Twelve Angry Men. Here, the courtroom is made up of bickering, bantering women who must decide the outcome of a heinous crime in 18th-century Suffolk.
A child has been murdered and an openly unfaithful wife, Sally Poppy, is sentenced to hang on the testimony of her cuckolded husband. She claims to be pregnant, which will earn her a commuted sentence, and the women are enlisted to vote on whether she is telling the truth.
Ria Zmitrowicz is the obnoxious, unlikable Sally, and Maxine Peake is the steely and outspoken midwife, Elizabeth, who seems at first her only defender.
