Motherland

A woman helping a stranger off the bus. A pair of boots awaiting burial. A teddy bear dressed as a squaddie.

These are just a few of the images that linger in the mind following this beautiful, near-perfect piece of verbatim theatre telling the stories of mothers, wives and girlfriends of British soldiers set to Iraq and Afghanistan.

Specifically, those from the North East of England - like Scotland, part of the UK that provides a disproportionate number of recruits to the armed forces.

The musical voices of four outstanding actresses - Rachel Adamson, Charlotte Binns, Eleanor Clarke and Helen Embleton - overlap and interweave, speaking the words of 16 different women whose sons, daughters or partners were posted to Iraq or Afghanistan.

The accounts provoke laughter as well as tears, but creator/director Steve Gilroy takes care to treat each woman with the utmost respect.

He allows those with grievances a platform to air them without tipping the production into polemic, and deftly balances heart-breaking confessions of guilt with equally moving expressions of pride.