The Ungodly @ Southwark Playhouse Borough - Review
A fresh, deeply human take on an often highlighted part of history, but it drags on and on and on. ★★★
On at Southwark Playhouse, Borough, until 16th November 2024.
Tickets £25 (£20 concessions).
Rating: ★★★
The Ungodly takes a unique perspective on the witch trials, foregrounding the traditional baddies of the story, the witchfinder general and his family. This seems to be a common theme of Southwark’s Autumn season. The perspective is effective, and allows for a deeply human retelling with no real attempt to teach the audience history, and where characters rarely seem to be standing in for groups or acting as symbols. It is not concept that drags this down, but structure.
This two act play is split cleanly into two parts. Before the interval, we get the origin story of Witchfinder General Matthew Hopkins (Vincent Moisy), his sister Susan (Nadia Jackson) and her husband (Christopher Ashman). He gradually becomes more and more superstitious and confident through the influence of religious lectures and deep study - it’s hard not to see a parallel to modern radicalisation. The second half then focuses on a witch trial, specifically the gathering of evidence. This half, equally, has modern echoes of forced confession and police malpractice.
Structurally, it’s imbalanced. The first half is engaging, the story more interesting and the pace rapid (sometimes too rapid), coming to an apex right before the interval, while the second half is predictable and drawn out, a slow slope down. The second half is also the part of this story better studied by other art and popular history, so feels stale. Throughout, pacing is a problem - there are too many scenes which are often too brief. It feels broken up and bitty, which in the first half is compensated for by an intriguing narrative, but in the second makes time drag on. The first half could be the whole play, if we were given more time in each scene to sit with impact.
The cast is generally good, with Moisy a standout. His characterisation of the Witchfinder-to-be is nervous and stuttering, obsessive and stiff but gaining confidence and presence as he becomes more sure that witches are the cause of the village’s misfortune. It is a timeless portrayal of a man finding meaning, and, though I do not know if this is the intention, a very accurate portrayal of an autistic character. This characterisation takes what could be a simple story of men hating women and adds a very human layer of why. My one gripe with the cast is the insistence by some to do accents they plainly cannot do - especially as this is set in a small village in the 17th century, the chance that any of these characters would speak in standard English with a hint of 21st century West Country accent is zero.
The set (Katy Latham) is quite impressive, solid-looking wooden furniture that starts in a pile and is gradually turned into a home by newlyweds, a neat visual metaphor for building their home, which is extended as they’re drawn into the obsession and it instead becomes Witchfinder HQ. It works very sensitively with the stage, which has seating all the way around, and does not obstruct line-of-sight from any angle. Unfortunately, when taken with the very frequent scene changes, the modular staging requires cast to continually move furniture, extending the darkness between scenes and adding to the feeling of drag. The costuming is impressively accurate and seemingly effortless, with good attention paid to norms of modest dress and mourning customs.
I see the vision of The Ungodly, and for the first half I’m largely on board. But after the interval, it’s a retelling of something you know that others have told better.
Follow me on instagram at London_Culturalist
You might also like:
Dark and rural:
Badguy main characters:
