Review: The Crucible, West End transfer

Amidst a witch hunt in Salem, a group of young women find that a new kind of power is at their fingertips – but this is anything but magic. As fear spreads, the threat of something supernatural clouds the judgment of many figures… some more level-headed than others to begin with. 

As fearmongering increasingly fragments our nation, never has an intensely-studied GCSE English text been depicted with such cathartic relevance on the West End. 

Harking back to Ivor Van Hove’s 2015 production of A View From The Bridge where blood fell from the ceiling, this version of another Arthur Miller classic opens with water falling from the sky, forming a blurry blue curtain between the audience and the acts on stage. Es Devlin’s striking design is symbolic of the washing away of sins – something the characters in The Crucible desperately try to do by abolishing witchcraft, only to commit worse sins in the process.