POPE JOAN St James’s Church, London W1

Louise Brealey’s play about a female Pope was commissioned by the National Youth Theatre and they are staging it in a church in Piccadilly, which has a reputation for being progressive, liberal and supporting the ordination of women to all the orders of the church. It was said that Joan’s male disguise was so successful, that she wasn’t discovered to be a woman until she gave birth whilst riding in a procession from St Peter’s to the Lateran in 857. It’s all a lot of nonsense, of course. There never was a female Pope. The legend, however, which only began in the 13th century, was widely believed for several centuries. In some versions of the myth she was stoned to death by an angry mob. A violently anti-Catholic tragedy, The Female Prelate by Elkanah Settle, was staged in London in 1680 and since then there have also been novels, films and a cameo appearance in Caryl Churchill’s Top Girls. Brealey has said she’s not interested so much in whether or not the story is true as why people wanted it to be true. In her version Joan goes into labour in the pulpit whilst she is preaching a feminist sermon, making the point that the first person Jesus informed of His resurrection was not a man but a woman, Mary Magdalene. The cardinals, a brutal lot, beat her to death. St James’s is a good setting for Paul Hart’s monk-filled production but the acoustics are poor. Robert Willoughby, the most articulate actor, stands out as a Machiavellian cardinal.