Theatre review: Jane Wenham, the Witch of Walkern

You don't see a lot of theatre about witch-hunts - presumably because Arthur Miller's The Crucible is so widely regarded (if not necessarily by me) as a masterpiece, that anything else would be held up to comparison. It's not put off Rebecca Lenkiewicz though, as she not only revisits the paranoia in Jane Wenham, the Witch of Walkern, she also finds a new and bitingly topical metaphor in the theme: Society's poor, old and disabled being demonised, scapegoated and ultimately disposed of. The village of Walkern in Generic Rural Accentshire saw its share of witch trials and executions in the 17th century, and decades later, when everyone thinks things are calming down, they flare up again. As the play opens a woman has just been hanged as a witch, leaving behind a distressed and sexually confused daughter, Ann (Hannah Hutch.)

Theatre review: A Life

The Finborough used to be a pub theatre, then it was a pub theatre without a pub attached, then a wine bar theatre. Now it's a wine bar theatre without a wine bar attached, as yet another business on the ground floor unfortunately goes under. Upstairs though the theatre continues, touch wood, to thrive with another full house, for another of its "lost" classics - although in this case, apparently Hugh Leonard's memory play A Life is fairly regularly revived in its native Ireland, if not here. Desmond Drumm (Hugh Ross) is a couple of months away from retirement, but he won't get to enjoy it: He's told his wife that he's been diagnosed with an ulcer, but in reality he's been given less than six months to live. When he visits his estranged friend Mary to make up, it sets off memories of his youth, and we see him in his twenties (David Walshe,) the mistakes he made then - and the ones he continues to make even now with time running out.