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BBC Radio 4, 20 July 2008
This contemporary drama starring Lenny Henry concerned a police chaplain charged
with the duty of advising fellow-officers, crime victims and young offenders about their futures. Unfortunately after several
years in the position, he discovers he has lost his faith; consequently he feels no compunction about committing adultery,
swearing or smoking pot. Jukes’s play showed the chaplain’s faith being repeatedly put to the test through encounters
with single mother Chantelle (Kerry Maclean), and idealistic young priest Michael (Danny Sapan), his businesslike doctor wife
Ruth (Jenny Jules) and his father Isaac (Oscar James). It reached no definite conclusion, other than to show that the priest
had no way of escaping his fate. Even when he entered a double suicide pact with Chantelle to throw himself off a tower-block,
he found that it did not work: Chantelle got cold feet at the last moment, while he found himself landing in a firefighter’s
sheet. If he was ever going to recover his faith, he would have to look to himself for advice; there was no easy way out.
Lenny Henry gave a vocally versatile performance,
once again showing that he is a fine straight actor. Steven Canny’s production employed a variety of sound-effects –
guns, crying babies, breaking glass, the screeching of car tyres – to conjure up the cutthroat world of inner-city Birmingham,
where the action took place.
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