Brighton Year-Round 2026
The Crucible
Lewes Little Theatre
Genre: American Theater, classical, Drama, Historical, Theatre, Tragedy
Venue: Lewes Little Theatre Lancaster Street
Festival: Brighton Year-Round
Low Down
It’s sobering to reflect the seven productions I’ve reviewed date from 2014 onwards: they include the Old Vic, National and last year’s Globe. “We live in a sharp time, a precise time” pronounces Deputy Governor Danforth. The Crucible plays at Lewes Little Theatre directed by Shaun Hughes till March 21. Sharp times.
One of Lewes Little’s finest of recent years; which often happens when they’re ambitious.
Review
When Shaun Hughes scheduled this Lewes Little Theatre production of Arthur Miller’s 1953 The Crucible, he knew he built on a very recent performing tradition: fake news, the rise of the far right. Hughes references a countervailing one too: Kimberley Belflower’s Royal Court play opening next week proclaims: John Proctor is the Villain. At Jermyn Street in January 2024 Talene Monahon’s The Good John Proctor proclaimed the same before transferring to Boston. Even Hughes though could not have predicted the paranoia of current events. One when truth to power brings retribution. It’s sobering to reflect the seven productions I’ve reviewed date from 2014 onwards: they include the Old Vic, National and last year’s Globe. “We live in a sharp time, a precise time” pronounces Deputy Governor Danforth. The Crucible plays at Lewes Little Theatre directed by Shaun Hughes till March 21. Sharp times.
Hughes’ elegantly stylised wooden rafters dividing left and right work with deft props: which include tables and beds easily transforming the space. Upstage stencil-cut trees further stylise the Brechtian effect. It’s helped as the stage atmosphere is swung through Christopher Pugh’s lighting to lend a green or blue eeriness along with props; ad occasional spotlighting. Pugh’s sound referencing an uncanny music discreetly scores tensions over a full production lasting three hours ten minutes: yet there’s no longeurs.
From the start there’s a difference in Darren Heather’s bullish Reverend Parris to any I’ve seen. From the start Heather’s panicky, voluble, rapid though clear. There’s no gradation. A man already alienated, unsympathetic. Someone initially rational; then you see his natural intemperance flip to preserve his job, willing to side with unreason (Miller has him proclaim his Harvard credentials; score-settling perhaps). Susie James takes his comatose then hysterical daughter Betty with aplomb, attended by Tituba (Jacques Prince Kwaw inflecting a rich Barbados). They’re joined by Ella Cambridge’s anxious Mercy Lewis.
It’s here that Sasha Spall as Abigail Williams is introduced. Instigator of the witch scare, largely forced into it but amplifying accusations, Spall is authentically vulnerable with violence more reined in than any I’ve seen. Spall gears to control as she stares out other girls. Against Tom Messmer Spall is half-wile, genuinely half-amorous, with a shudder from Messmer. It’s a recent trend, making Proctor more complicit in his “thinking softly”, and thoroughly convincing too. Emily Alexandra’s Mary Warren is perhaps the finest I’ve seen. Defensive then bullied into speaking, she ratchets from contained, even smug, to terror-struck. Alexandra sashays throughout, swayed by Proctor and Abigail. Their friend Susanna Walcott (Clara Ross) is here ever led, ever prone to terror. Their scenes of mass hysteria are visceral, horribly thrilling.
Messmer leads as John Proctor: one of the finest Proctors I’ve seen (curiously another is Andy Bell twice at BLT; both finer than some major productions). Messmer bestrides the play morally and emotionally. However compromised this Proctor is, Messmer’s no villain but someone capable of tragic self-realisation beyond anyone else. From the start he exudes the force that drew Abigail; yet one newly-woken from his own lust. Messmer can smooth guttural rage to scoop diminuendos; rasp despair to a tortured whisper in jail, yet still explode.
One point missed in several productions is how Proctor seasons the strew himself behind his wife Elizabeth’s back: symbolising the lack of it in their life. Here Messmer lingers repeatedly seasoning the pot. So his ironic “Tis well seasoned” really lands. It’s at this point too the production takes off and never lets up.
Elizabeth Proctor (Alison Finch) is initially reticent and soft-voiced. I initially feared. I needn’t have. Hers is a shattering journey as Finch releases Elizabeth from her justice that “would freeze beer” in Acts Three and Four. Hughes has blocked their encounters well, bifurcating left and right: particularly in the climactic trial test, when Elizabeth is brought in to testify, unaware of what’s passed. Finch manages a subdued stand-offishness before then. The greatest is yet to come.
By contrast, there’s a truculent, thoroughly believable Giles Corey (David Ford, both warm and eyeballing). There’s great chemistry between him and Messmer, who’s always trying to moderate Corey’s litigious lusts (even once on Proctor, who cheerfully forgave him). With a young, drunk Marshall Herrick (Max Jones) we see on a more mundane level a turncoat role like Parris but with more excuse: sometimes tripping up Proctor to his enemies, latterly pleading for him. Jones insinuates a not wholly literal-minded official.
Alan Lade makes a ruggedly mean accuser as proto-capitalist Thomas Putnam. He looms and booms avarice too, making a substantial impression. Jennifer Henley’s sniping and superstitious Ann Putnam breathes poison. Liz Stapleton’s filthy prattling drunk Sarah Good is (I think) also a fleeting Martha Corey (not listed).
Harry Hoblyn start unnervingly quiet but proves himself in a different reading of the conflicted, intelligent, ultimately truth-telling Reverend Hale. Ignoring the hauteur some bring to the role, he invests Hale with a sympathy and early on an inner doubt you see disregarded by the burl and stride of more dominating characters. The way Hoblyn ratchets up his truth is exhilarating, though his costume doesn’t fall to rags as some do.
Robert Hamilton as Danforth is as you’d expect as clear, strident, bullish and bullying as his role demands. He adds here a blunt disdain. Few can catch Danforth’s chilling quiet that can contrast to spine-tingling effect. Hamilton though burls with a believable physical menace. Alan Chapman’s Judge Hathorne seems brushed aside by Danforth, but in a welcome return to the stage of late, grasps Hathorne’s tithe of mischief.
With Danforth, Miller’s registering how new science with its measuring is encroaching on how religion and Danforth’s superstition operate: with no lassitude either way. But he’s also registering the fragility both of the colonial settlement and its temporary usurpation of powers from the English after the 1688 ‘Glorious‘ Revolution. Which as Miller points out, allows local mutations of justice and the catastrophe of Salem.
Chloe Franks though illumines early and final scenes as Rebeca Nurse, movingly shadowing Messmer’s visible struggle as Proctor’s conscience flounders. Neither judging harshly nor letting go, Franks make you believe Hale’s praise of her, and when she staggers with her final line “I have had no breakfast this morning” it comes out as piteous and right.
The last scene though is Messmer’s and Finch’s. Their final reunion shatters as Elizabeth repeatedly tries not to judge by saying she doesn’t, but can’t help herself. Finch explodes from her truth to love, shuddering as if the world is falling; which it is. I’ve never seen their final encounter overwhelm like this. This is as explosive and yet passionate as I’ve ever seen. The release here is palpable, and when Hoblyn’s Hale returns to remonstrate with Finch’s Elizabeth her final line rings out. One of Lewes Little’s finest of recent years; which often happens when they’re ambitious.
Stage Manager Joanne Cull, ASMs Charlotte Grimshaw, Susan Heather, Donna Doughty
Set Wardrobe Kirsten Bowen and Susie O’Hare, Build LLT Set Build Team, Photography Keith Gilbert. Trailer Production Nathan Croft, One Studio Pictures.
