Hamilton may have helped the West End recover from The Covid Years, but it carries its share of blame too. Perhaps that’s not strictly fair on some of its spawn, but do we get Coven without that musical behemoth? If not, this one’s on you Lin-Manuel.
We’re back in the early 1600s, though not in music and speech, natch. Shakespeare had written the (literally) bewitching A Midsummer Night’s Dream 15 years earlier and The Tempest, with a necromancer as its protagonist, two years prior, but, in 1612 and again in 1633, children were denouncing their families for witchcraft. Of course, as is the case today with authorities rounding up people they don’t like, the actual issue at hand barely matters - it’s the local enmities beneath the surface, the thrill of a crowd witnessing performative cruelty and the buttressing of the threat of arbitrary power, that provides the true motivation for such action.
So Rebecca Brewer (book, music and lyrics) and Daisy Chute (music, lyrics and orchestrations) have got something really meaty to chew on with the Pendle Witches’ Trials. Can they, as Hamilton so memorably achieves, catch this lightning in a bottle? Alas, it doesn’t take long for the familiar problems of a new musical to swamp such hopes.
Initially, all is well, the standard set by Gabrielle Brooks’ magnificent “Clear My Name” with the singing and tunes remaining strong throughout. That said, we soon get used to it - musical theatre actors should sing well after all - and we’re waiting for the story to catch fire. At the end of Act 1, it still hasn’t.
That’s largely the product of a book that seems stuck on a plot that plods when it should fly, despite the crediting of a dramaturg in Morgan Lloyd Malcom. Brooks’ Jenet remains too long pious and desperate to be vindicated by a patriarchal church in which she still has hope, Penny Layden’s Martha has made the ultimate sacrifice so her daughter might live (and then been pretty much forgotten) and Diana Vickers’ jailer is still seeking a remedy for his er.. intimate discomfort. Pace is not a feature of this production.
What’s most disappointing are the cookie cutter women incarcerated with Jenet in some rather impressive clothes and displaying levels of literacy rural Lancashire might struggle to match even today. They’re little more than their pretexts for accusation: the medicinal herbalist; the midwife/abortionist; the spurned wife; the pregnant victim of droit du seigneur. How do these women live? What are their hopes and dreams beyond escape? Where is the light and shade of character formed in the hard scrabble of rural life? The writers have a free hand here as the women are real - they are on the record - but little is known of them. And that’s still the case at the curtain too.
In the second half, we go back from 1633 to Jenet’s childhood and her testimony that saw her family go to the gallows in 1612. Men arrive as characters (this is an all female cast) and their power and terrifying misogyny is diminished by their caricaturing as pantomime figures. The only one not given that treatment is the creepy fanatic Edmund (brilliantly played by the doubling Vickers, pictured above) who suborns then grooms the kid, represented by Laura Cubitt’s wonderful puppet. It’s the only point at which menace and pathos is sustained and the show allows real dread to seep over the fourth wall.
There’s time for a bit of mysticism to be hinted at - had Stevie Nicks appeared to sing “Rhiannon”, I would not have been surprised - and a musical genre or two to be ticked off to add to folk, pop, country, power ballad and rousing anthem, “Common Woman” being the best of a decent score. Then we’re left with more raised fists and appeals to an only slightly updated idea of Girl Power and we’re done.
The sense of being let down is sharper because this is strong base material, uncannily relevant to today and boasting a score that can support a West End / Broadway musical. But the drama never breathes, crushed by the weight of political points being made and repeated with wearying frequency. Lose 30 minutes, three characters and the didactic messaging; add rounded backstories, a consistent tone and genuine pace and there’s a strong show here.
Ironically, given its subject matter, for now musical theatre’s alchemy has proved elusive.
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