'The most simply impressive … it comes from a deep immersion in the specifics of locality and of a moment in time while framing more universal moral and spiritual questions.' — Rowan Williams, New Statesman

Mack O'Brien left Port Talbot for the seminary as a teenager and comes home a decade later unordained, still unsure what makes for a moral life. He takes a job as a security guard at the steelworks, and when the men organise an unprecedented strike against job cuts, he sees no reason not to join them.

Then Siwan Roderick walks into the local club — the woman who once turned up at the seminary to make a confession and swear him to secrecy. 'Just so we're clear,' she said, 'I know the rules of confession.' Mack kept his word. As the strike nears and he begins to understand what Siwan is planning, he must weigh his loyalty to her against the question of whether violence can ever be justified. All the while, the town's most famous son, a Hollywood star, is home to stage an epic community Passion play.

Communion has themes of faith, class, activism and masculinity and asks what becomes of a place when the industry that justified it is withdrawn, a question Europe's steel towns will recognise at once.