Coven – Kiln Theatre

Gabrielle Brooks and Lauryn Redding in Coven at the Kiln Theatre, London. Picture: Marc Brenner

Coven continues at the Kiln Theatre, London until 17 January 2026.

Star rating: three stars ★ ★ ★ ✩ ✩

In the early 17th century, witch trials became particularly popular in England, partly due to James I’s succession to the English throne. Already King of Scotland, he had become convinced that Scottish witches were plotting against him, and his obsession grew stronger from there.

Most famous of these trials concerned the group known as the ‘Pendle witches’, 12 people accused of murder by witchcraft in the vicinity of Pendle Hill in Lancashire. Coven, a new musical with a book by Rebecca Brewer and music and lyrics by Brewer and Daisy Chute, sets itself in the courthouse cells as a group of women await sentencing.

The courthouse scenes are set some 20 years after the events at Pendle, allowing Brewer and Chute to explore a series of archetypes through a more fictional lens. The link to the 1612 Pendle trials exists, though, through the central character of Gabrielle Brooks’ Jenet, who, as a nine year old, gave the evidence that damned her sister, her mother and others to a sentence of execution. Two decades later, the devout Jenet herself stands accused and locked up with women whose actions have led them to face similar accusations.

The introduction to all these characters begins with haunting a cappella performances in the English folk tradition, lending the production a sense of time and place. As we meet the other wronged women, other musical sensibilities take hold; distinctive R&B tinges break through any time the women try to take ownership of their lives, in true Beyoncé style.

The archetypes represented by each woman in the cell typify the types of ‘crimes’ that could be used to accuse someone of witchcraft. Some have healing skills (Allyson Ava-Brown’s Nell is a midwife, Jacinta Whyte’s Maggie is a herbalist and what we would now term a hypnotherapist). Others have had the temerity to stand up to the patriarchy, particularly Lauryn Redding’s Rose, who is now pregnant after being raped by the local landowner, who has also locked up his own wife (Shiloh Coke’s Frances).

Brewer and Chute want us to see and acknowledge that the true wickedness at the heart of the system is patriarchy. Nowhere is this more evident than in the opening moments of Act II, where Heinrich Kramer’s 15th century anti-witch treatise, the Malleus Maleficarum, is portrayed as the outpourings of a man who cannot relate to women. Kramer is, the musical suggests, the original incel and his work is little more than a medieval YouTube rant.

That’s far from the only anachronism or attempt to inject humour into the story, though. Diana Vickers’ jailer – wearing the sort of policeman’s outfit that would suit the Keystone Kops more than it would a 17th century serf – has a style of broad comedy that sits uneasily beside the more strait-laced performances of the incarcerated women.

That mishmash of styles culminates in an Act I courtroom scene in which a young boy (Vickers again) gives evidence in a full-on pop number, complete with glitter-encrusted wireless mic. It’s part Marlow and Moss’ Six the Musical, part Herod in Jesus Christ Superstar – here, it just feels odd and out of sorts.

Such choices also flatten what could have been the emotional impact of a scene in which Jenet realises she is being condemned by a child in the same way that her testimony sealed the fate of her family members. All is not lost, though, for Coven has so little material to draw upon that the point is repeated multiple times thereafter. Most of Act II is taken up with an extended flashback, as Brooks’ Jenet watches what really happened 20 years before.

With the nine-year-old Jenet portrayed by a small puppet articulated by various ensemble members as required, we see how she was groomed and manipulated by the prosecutor, Roger Nowell, into giving damning evidence. This section of the musical is the most emotionally affecting sequence of the whole. Even then, it never feels as if we are learning as much as the time spent suggests we could.

Patriarchy is damaging to all, of course, and Miranda Cromwell’s production of Coven does not attempt to soft-soap that message in its tub-thumping treatise. One can feel the hand of Morgan Lloyd Malcom (who receives credit for additional story development) in the book’s better moments, as it delivers that message. But Malcolm’s own Emilia handled both the message and the combination of high drama and low comedy far better than is accomplished here.

There is undoubtedly much to explore in the stories of the people who were subject to witch trials and in the real lives disrupted. One comes away believing that Brewer and Chute have nailed why the story is so relevant, with misogyny and demonisation on the rise once more. But Coven, for all its attempts to do so, cannot decide how it wants to tell that story, or who it really wants to centre.

Scott Matthewman