Royal Court Theatre - 1977
The lives of three fifth-form Catholic schoolgirls in 1956 and 1957 at the North London Convent of Our Lady of Fatima provide a battleground between the conflicting impulses of their burgeoning sexuality and the strictures of their faith. Busty blonde Mary McGinty cannot wait to leave school to work in a shop, hangs out with 'teddy-boy' Derek, but kissing is as far as she will go. Derek gets more satisfaction from naïve Mary Mooney, plain and scruffy, whose mortal sin - helping Derek out - pushes her towards a future as a nun, despite music master Emmanuelli's encouragement of her fine voice.
Sensible and attractive Mary Gallagher plays the system, as does her spotty boyfriend Cuthbert, a Catholic sixth-former whose curious ambition is to be a non-celibate priest. They sleep together, she wears the forbidden tampons, and she gets away with it. Yet no matter what the girls' attitude towards their religion, and however much they see through the rantings of Mother Peter, Mother Basil and Father Mullarky, it is evident that they have all been permanently affected, one way or another, by their faith.