The Crucible - Altrincham Garrick

BEFORE every production at the Garrick the audience is subject to a brief recorded message via the venue’s speakers, which ends with theatregoers being told the venue’s bar is open before and after the show.

You may well be in need of a calm down drink after watching this truly memorable production of a play that has lost none of its shock value more than 70 years after it was first performed.

But what do you expect, as this piece came from the pen of one of the greatest playwrights of all time?

The Crucible is inspired by the notorious witch trials in Salem which began in 1692 after a group of hysterical young girls started exhibiting bizarre behaviours which were then regarded as signs of witchcraft.

Betty Parris, lying flat out on a bed when we first see her, is the catalyst for a string of tragic events in a town ruled with an iron fist by its Puritan leaders.

Joe Meighan’s production succeeds in making the audience feel trapped in a place where rationality and reason has totally disappeared.

Then again, Meighan has an exceptional cast to work with and he must have thought all his birthdays had come at once when his actors initially auditioned for the parts. What is even more remarkable is the way they make you care about the fate of a community caught up in a deeply disturbing and unsettling situations.

In terms of the best performances they come from Loui Quelcutti as a very northern John Proctor, Antonia Whitehead as his wife Elizabeth and Chloe Arrowsmith as Abigail Williams. Even when ensconced on the back row of the theatre I felt genuinely spooked by Charlie Tomlinson as Deputy Governor Thomas Danforth.

Then there’s the script of course, peppered as it is with literary gems from a playwright whose works never fail in the deeply affecting department.

As for the girls’ bizarre behaviours that could have been the result of food poisoning, according to my research on the Internet.

All this begs the question - why wasn’t the play performed to a full house on Monday night?

This is Altrincham Garrick’s production of the season for me. Three compelling hours in the presence of a cast dripping with talent.

Totally unmissable.

Star rating - *****

Tickets are available from 0161 928 1677 or altrinchamgarrick.co.uk.

Photo by Martin Ogden.