WILMSLOW Green Room Theatre offers a moving look at teenage pregnancy in the swinging 60s in its first production of 2018.

Be My Baby is set in a mother and baby Home in 1964 in the north of England, and follows the fortunes of Mary Adams (Niamh Phelan), 17, unmarried and seven months pregnant.

Forcibly sent there by a mother (Jill Ollerenshaw) intent on keeping up appearances, Mary, along with the other girls in the home, has to cope with the shame and the dawning realisation that she will have to give the baby up for adoption, whether she likes it or not.

Despite this, and an overbearing matron (Collette Fitton), the girls’ youthful effervescence keeps breaking through.

These homes were a well-kept secret that blighted the lives of thousands of young women to whom playwright Amanda Whittington has given a voice in this play.

Set to the sounds of 60s girl-group pop music, Be My Baby follows Mary and her fellow inmates at St Saviours C of E home as they cling to youthful fantasies of romance and marriage while being drawn inexorably towards outraged, powerless adulthood.

They find comfort in each other’s friendship but eventually have to face their individual tragedies alone.

Mary Adams is played by Niamh Phelan, with Jessica Trimble as Dolores, Emma Pythian as Queenie, Atuse Sade as Norma, Colette Fitton as Matron and Jill Ollerenshaw as Mrs Adams.

The play was written by Amanda Whittington in 1997, and features a soundtrack of classic 60s songs, including Be My Baby by The Ronettes, Chapel of Love by The Dixie Cups and Past, Present and Future by The Shangri-Las.

Be My Baby is by the same playwright as the award-winning The Thrill of Love, which was produced at the Wilmslow Green Room Theatre in 2015.

The play runs from Saturday, January 27 to Saturday, February 3, and is directed by Ian McBride.

Tickets are available by calling 01625 540933, online at wgrs.org.uk and there is a Saturday box office at the Green Room on Saturdays January 13, 20 and 27 from 11am to midday.