Coven at Kiln Theatre
Throughout history, often the most we learn from it are the facts: who did what, where and when. Sometimes we know why, but sometimes we don’t. But the human element, as in the reaction from it happening to them, is often left out. A glaring oversight, it seems, yet it provides an opportunity for the creative-minded to interpret their take on the forgotten parts and people of history.
The Pendle Witch Trials serve as the inspiration for Coven, a new musical now showing at the Kiln Theatre in North West London, directed by Olivier award-winning Miranda Cromwell, with music and lyrics by Rebecca Brewer and Grammy-winning Daisy Chute. The play unfolds centre stage while musicians perform live and in plain sight, with the stage design feeling almost brutalist, yet open and characterful to let the show play out across various levels.
The all-female cast are staggeringly good, most of them playing more than one role with wildly differing emotions; the powerful cell scenes where the convicted women can do nothing but wait for the inevitable are a stark contrast to those where men rule, faceless crowds making comical braying noise. Indeed, the ridiculousness of these moments is successfully played for laughs, but by the end, you almost feel bad for laughing because of the decisions they make.
While Gabrielle Brooks stuns as central character Jenet Device, it’s Lauryn Redding who steals the show as Rose, who truly goes through the wringer, yet Redding masterfully peels back the layers to show her character’s heart under her no-nonsense exterior. Alongside Rose, she also portrays the deceitful Roger in Jenet’s flashback, menacingly singing Family Man while “looking after” the nine-year-old girl.
Cromwell’s decision to portray Jenet as a three-foot-tall puppet is inspired; its design is spookily realistic, yet using it reflects exactly how Jenet was used in the 1612 witch trials. But it’s only as she realises this that we realise with her – an already horrific situation is downright mortifying, and her beliefs are struck down at the worst possible moment.
Chute’s background in folk and roots music provides a spellbinding soundtrack (pun not intended), one moment swaying towards trad influences and the next a gorgeous Americana ballad. As the second act climaxes, Burn Our Bodies is sung as a furious protest song with modern inflexions.
These are raw and powerful emotions, understandably so from a dark, tumultuous period of humanity; it’s suggested that turning a blind eye towards these is why we in today’s world know virtually nothing of them in fact. While that may be the case, being human never changes, and Brewer successfully uses this to convey to a 21st-century audience how these women must have felt during the witch-obsessed time of the 1600s.
Coven is a must-see, and if there’s any justice, it’ll be transferred to the West End before the end of the decade.
Gem Hurley
Photos: Marc Brenner
Coven is at Kiln Theatre from 11th November 2025 until 17th January 2026. For further information or to book, visit the theatre’s website here.
Watch the trailer for Coven at Kiln Theatre here:
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