The Warehouse Theatre's intriguing and brutal production, Witch, is no ordinary tale of witchcraft. It is not about spells, potions and hocus pocus but it is deep, disturbing and fierce.

As I left the venue after witnessing this powerful play by Ade Morris, I was glad of a blast of icy cold air to clear my head.

The audience was thrust back in time to follow the tortured mind of Susan back to an age when "men were sorcerers and women were witches".

We never discovered why Susan was so desperately distressed yet her inner-turmoil, portrayed by Clara Onyemere, was almost tangible. Haunted by women cast from this earth as witches, she was the by far strongest character.

Her nightmarish world brought scenes of lust, persecution, murder and terror to the stage.

Whether Jamara (Toni Midlane) and Dee (John Sackville) were her counsellors or just voices in her head, I never grasped.

They interacted ferociously and, with the help of a spooky white puppet, dragged poor Susan down through a spiral of shocking demises of women labelled witches.

Sackville frenetically played persecutor, lover, husband, magistrate, alchemist and priest.

Midlane excelled in the role of a high-class whore and was hilarious as a witness in the criminal court.

The audience experiences a whole range of emotions in just a few short hours. I cringed as a baby was ripped from a womb and flung on a fire, giggled at the romping and laughed out loud during the scenes in the court.

But the real question was were the women accused witches or was it just a convenient way to get rid of them?

In one scene a mistress is accused of being a witch by her late-lover's vengeful wife, in another an incestuous relationship sees off a sister and her "demon child" and, in a third, a wife refusing her husband his nuptial rights from fear of syphilis is sent to Bedlam after she turns to murder.

The most revealing speech came from Jamara to Susan: "You are a witch, you made a man weak."

This brutal, intriguing, powerful play will cast a spell on you.

To November 18, Witch, Warehouse Theatre, Dingwall Road, Croydon, 8pm, Sun 5pm, £5.50-£11, 020 8680 4060.

November 14, 2001 15:30