THE venue and lunchtime slot is well suited to Jennifer monologue of discreetly articulated sorrow, in which a Northern Irishwoman, Christine Maltseed (Anne Brogan), recently widowed by a sectarian murder, contemplates her past and future to the accompaniment of the gently scraping soup spoons. This is the civilised face of grief.

Sitting in the kitchen of the house she shared with her husband and father-in-law, which is now up for sale,, her mind leaps from memories of her own mother to the quiet evenings spent watching television with her husband, her reaction when he joined the UDR and the delicate tensions in her friendship with a Catholic neighbour.

It's not surprising that this piece has been performed on radio, as it requires minimal stain and its effects are dependent on the precision of the language and the performer's emotional range. expressed through subtle shifts in tone and modulation. Anne Brogan sensitively captures the crisis, precipitated by bereavement, of Christine's childlike religious faith, and the gaping emptiness facing a woman whose life was devoted to protecting her husband from an awareness of his own frailties.