Hashtag Witch Hunt: chilling play tells of trial by media

The Witching Hour. Photo courtesy of ReBels Young Company.

The Witching Hour by ReBels Young Company at Birmingham REP Saturday 12 July.

Review by Amanda Burden

Great adverts stick in the memory forever. Who can forget Leonard Rossiter and Joan Collins enjoying a cheeky Cinzano on a plane, or the blue-grey smoke of a Hamlet cigar curling lazily upwards to the strains of Bach’s Air on a G String? One advertisement that particularly stood out for me was the beer commercial which confidently proclaimed that if Heineken made a insert product, it would be like this insert luxury version of product. This campaign came vividly to mind on Saturday night, because if controversial psychologist Stanley Milgrim made a stage show, it would undoubtedly be like The Witching Hour at the Birmingham Rep.

Powerful and disturbing. Photo courtesy of ReBels Young Company.

For those who don’t know, the Milgrim experiment was designed to see how far ordinary people would go in following instructions, even if it led to murder. Participants were divided into two groups, with one set given control of an electric shock machine, while the other group received the shocks. Chillingly, more than half the participants were willing to administer a fatal voltage just because an authority figure commanded it.

The Witching Hour parallels this experiment, putting the audience in the roles of shock administrators. We found ourselves part of the immersive performance, participating in a game show/ witch trial that slowly veered from confession to cruelty. Part Black Mirror, part X Factor, part Britain’s Got Talent, it was by turns shocking and brilliant.

Trial by media. Photo courtesy of ReBels Young Company.

The set – a television studio cleverly placed in the context of a rural village - neatly blurs the time period between a near present dystopia and 13th century witch trials. Hashtags and emojis jostle with pitchforks and ducking stools as tools of the witchfinder, cheered on by us as voyeuristic spectators, told when to applaud by the blink of a neon sign.

At the centre is smarmy perma-tanned host Chris Hopkins (Toby McLellen), who self-righteously struts the stage with a malicious bleached-tooth grin, dealing out judgements with the impartiality and wisdom of Donald Trump. Unsuspecting audience member Mary (Meg Sharland) is hauled onstage, accused first of ‘reciting an incantation’ (singing along with Rapper’s Delight), and then riding a broomstick (playing with a hobby horse). Her mother (Rose Williams) steps straight from the pages of Hansel and Gretel, indignant and pious as the charges stack up.  But Mary’s truly unforgivable crime is turning down the village hottie (Jamie Simpson). For a woman, this deviance can only point one way – witchcraft. The spotlight on toxic masculinity and incel culture proves this is not a modern-day phenomenon but a narrative as old as time. Society loves a scapegoat.

The show is intensely compelling. Photo courtesy of ReBels Young Company.

The show is intensely compelling yet massively uncomfortable – we are forced to confront that no observer is passive, but instrumental in the humiliation and suffering of others. Hit programmes like Big Brother and Love Island are compulsive viewing for this very reason. Being swept along by a tidal wave of condemnation is horrifyingly easy – one moment we’re laughing, the next voting - and finally we’re fully paid-up members of the baying mob. Like those present-day reality programmes, this show is impossible to look away from - and will be even harder to forget. Innovative and powerful.

Discover more tour dates of ReBels Young Company’s The Witching Hour: https://barbicantheatre.co.uk/young-company/

Discover more from the Birmingham REP: https://www.birmingham-rep.co.uk/