The countryside around Lancaster may or may not have once been a hotbed of supernatural activity, but the Pendle Witches still work wonders for the local economy. They have their own heritage centre, a beer and even a bus route named after them. Now Richard Shannon has written a play on the events that led to 10 people being hanged for witchcraft in 1612.
Any dramatisation of a 17th-century witch trial has a hard task emerging from the shadow of Arthur Miller's The Crucible. Though it is conceived on a less ambitious scale, Amy Leach's economical, in-the-round production almost feels like a chamber version of Miller's great play. Both pieces have hysterical girls, hypocritical judges and innocent bystanders drawn into the mire. But whereas Miller's work was perceived as an analogy of anti-communist purges, the Pendle paranoia was directed against anyone showing papist tendencies. The local magistrate (commandingly played by David Acton) works hard to stoke the charge of enchantment, but his true colours are revealed when he declares the whole thing to be a Jesuit conspiracy.
You could claim that the gunpowder plot was as fresh in these people's minds as 9/11 is in ours. But that perhaps loads more significance on to the play's modest framework than is intended. There is fine work from the cast: Christine Mackie displays quiet dignity as Alice Nutter, a woman accused of unnatural practices; Hannah Emanuel portrays the agony of losing her best friend to the noose and Amaka Okafor gives a fiery account of the feral teen at the root of the trouble. I don't know if there are diabolical forces at work, but hers is a performance that seems truly possessed.
