Be My Baby; Colne Dramatic Society

Actresses Emily Williamson, Brogan Riley and Cathryn Osborne rehearsing for Be My Baby, to be staged by Colne Dramatic Society next month. (s)

Audiences will be swept up in a flurry of laughter and tears when this poignant musical about downtrodden mothers is staged in Colne next month.

Amanda Whittington’s Be My Baby throws light on the unspoken realities of the Swinging Sixties, when a generation of women secretly gave birth out of wedlock in Church of England residential homes, before giving their babies up for adoption.

Presented by Colne Dramatic Society and directed by Eleanor Jolley, the production is set over two months in 1964 during an age of sexual liberation.

This social commentary follows 19 year-old Mary, who, pregnant and alone, finds herself housed in St Saviour’s, a church-sponsored dormitory for pregnant women.

The tale is set to the songs that forged the culture of the 1960s and doused it in sugar: a time when sex education was delivered, not at school but through the romantic music of The Ronettes, tracks which hooked a generation of naive young girls.

Audiences can sing along to classics hits like Chapel of Love by the Dixie Cups, Past Present & Future by The Shangrilas and So Young by The Ronettes, not forgetting the title track.

The strong all-female cast comprises Emily Williamson, Cathryn Osborne, Brogan Riley, Fiona McInerney, Susan Mullen and Charis Deighton.

Be My Baby will be presented at The Little Theatre, River Street, Colne, from Monday, May 1st to Saturday, May 6th, at 7-30pm nightly.

Tickets are Â£7 for Monday and Tuesday and Â£7.50 for Wednesday to Saturday. Book via the theatre answerphone on 01282 861424 or visit Colne Library on Saturday, April 22nd or Saturday, April 29th, from 11am to 1pm.