It is Lock who commands the stage in the first act, and there is no shame whatsoever in admitting that. Her Mother is a woman of cheerful authority, comedically overbearing in that very particular way that only mothers of a certain conviction can be, proud of her children, blind in the way that love makes you blind, and utterly, delightfully funny with it. Lock pitches the role perfectly, neither caricature nor understatement. You are laughing with her and, crucially, you are fond of her, which makes what follows in the second act land with genuine force.

Because when the community’s discovery of William and Richard’s relationship tears the world apart, it is Mother’s grief that becomes the emotional centre of the piece. The transition is measured at first, the realisation creeping in rather than crashing down, but Lock does not let it stay quiet for long. In a moment of solitude, she releases everything that has been building, and “Hurricane,” the song that carries it, earns its title. It is a wrenching piece of writing, and Lock delivers it with the kind of fearless commitment that stops a show in its tracks. When the full horror of what is coming settles over her afterwards, the silence that follows the storm is almost unbearable