A thing of beauty was revealed this week in the unlikely setting of Winchester Prison.

Behind the walls and the barbed wire, a play called Refuge received its premire.

Specially written, it was performed in the sports hall by inmates of the West Hill women's annexe and drama students from King Alfred's College. Playwright, Dawn Garrigan, commissioned by the Clean Break Theatre Company, has collaborated with the prisoners to create an unsettling, genuinely moving and uplifting play that explore issues in the penal system.

From the inmates' ghostly voices, with which it began, to the final words of hope, the performance was astounding.

It portrays not only life in a modern jail life but also how it once was - in Battery House, the Victorian resettlement unit in Romsey Road, Winchester, to where women prisoners were transferred to finish their sentences.

Weaving its way through the story is the tale of Amelia Drinkwater, a Victorian maid who was raped by her master, slung out of her job and who left the resulting child to die in the cold.

She was jailed for eight years.

There were so many moments of haunting power. For me, it was when American inmate, Mimi Frank, startled and challenged the 150-strong audience: "You sit here and try to be human - you try."

The acting was first-class and the singing of June Gordon staggeringly beautiful.