The Crucible at the Festival Theatre Edinburgh

Be afraid! Be very afraid! For the evil, the fear, the superstitions and, indeed, the savagery, which surrounds the Salem witches, is almost palpable in Scottish Ballet's production of Arthur Miller's 1953 play which was first performed to celebrate the company's 50th anniversary in 2019.

You'll be bewitched by David Finn's dark, stark set, and atmospheric lighting which casts many a shadow on the stellar cast retelling the story of Abigail, the servant girl who seeks a way to curse her former employer after having an affair with her husband, and who leads a group of girls into the woods where they dance, out of control and naked, and end up with nooses around their necks.

The heightened senses of such circumstances come to the fore in the dancers' sometimes frenzied sequences – driven by the dystopian music of the composer who may well have been possessed to write such fitting, menacing music as his name is Peter Salem – their bodies at times arced in pain, anger and sorrow, at others synchronized in beautiful symmetry.

It is a production which will haunt me for a long time to come.

Image: Rimbaud Patron

Festival Theatre, Edinburgh

1-3 May 2025

Theatre Royal, Glasgow

22-24 May 2025