Modern Plays

She could teach more folk round ''ere about what''s bloody well important in their lives - when it comes down to it. What matters . . . That precious bit of you that gets buried in shit, and she''s there clearin'' it all away.

Delie is special and she''s won a trophy for picking up litter from the mayor. Every summer she goes on her holidays to her Aunty Brenda who runs a women''s domestic abuse refuge in a Yorkshire mining village. Delie and her Aunty Brenda and a pawnbroker called George who wears a dress are The Flannelettes - a Motown tribute band.

Delie is in her twenties but with a mental age of ten; when she meets Roma - who used to live on the streets in Rotherham - the two become best friends, sharing each others'' secrets.

By the award-winning writer of The Glee Club, The Flanelettes is a tough, uncompromising play which looks at love and violence in a shattered community, all playing to a bittersweet soundtrack of Sixties soul.