(Lyn Gardner’s review appeared in the Guardian, 5/28.)
The sweet sound of birdsong serenades the ear. The glow from the lamp on the Welsh dresser is cosy. The child waking from a nightmare should be easily soothed back to sleep by a fairytale or a lullaby. But when young Joan (Eleanor Bailey) wakes in the night at her uncle and aunt's house, she hears and sees things no child would forget. She feels the blood beneath her feet; she sees her uncle beating a child with a steel rod; she hears the cries of humans caged like animals in a lorry. Aunt Harper cannot meet her young niece's unclouded eye as she tries to soothe away the fears and give a convincing explanation of the horrors that are taking place.
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