The most unsettling thing about The Seven Witches of Torryburn is its central proposition: the supposed witches are ordinary women. Inspired by the seven named women in the historical record, the play approaches persecution through human lives rather than supernatural spectacle. Its potential power lies in that reversal. The question is not whether witchcraft exists, but how a community comes to treat accusation as proof.
Written and directed by Brandon Ferguson, the drama is set in Torryburn in 1666, where suspicion turns neighbours against one another. First-person accounts give the accused women space to tell their stories.
Music offers another route into those lives. With lyrics by Ciaran Owens and a score by Alia E. Torrie, the songs pound your senses with their emotional force and bind the story together. The cast as an ensemble provide solidarity in their struggle against the righteousness of the church in thought provoking lyrics. Rebekah Clark’s Grissell Anderson, provides raw defiance and anger tinged with vulnerability that is reflected in her vocal performance. Such material promises more than a mournful tribute: it allows resistance, as well as suffering, to occupy the stage.
Religious authority provides the opposing pressure. Ferguson’s Reverend Allan Logan provides a fantastic evolution from cautions protector of Torryburn from the vices of the devil to a delirious religious zealot . At times he portrayed the Reverend with an intoxication of power that was unstoppable and un-nerving . The eager student of the “Witch pricker”, he rampages through the tolbooth holding the women, with a frenzied test of their guilt. This was particularly brutal and difficult to watch re-enforcing how realistic the performance was.
The production was a “stripped back” performance. At times the repeated changes of scene and positioning of chairs would have benefited from a more permanent stage furniture. The acoustics of the venue added a gravitas to the music and lyrics and ironically the venue, being a church previously, seemed to accept the transgressions of the church played out on the stage.
However, some lines were occasionally lost in the rafters and didn’t land.
Nevertheless, the performances from everyone in the cast far outweighed the minor setbacks. Rather than offering comfortable distance from a brutal past, the play invites scrutiny of the habits that make persecution possible: conformity, suspicion and the willingness to surrender judgement to authority.
From Grissel’s stoic mother Martha, the naive and frightened Elspeth, and her fellow accused, every woman was portrayed with compassion, thought and sincerity that this sisterhood deserved.
From direction and production, to the performance from actors on stage and off, this provocative piece is a lasting testament to some of the darkest times of this area of Fife.
Its strongest achievement is its insistence that behind an infamous collective label stand women whose humanity should never have been negotiable or forgotten.
The Seven Witches of Torryburn has finished its 2026 Scottish tour but if this production tours again, it is a must see.
Reviewer: Ross Mackie
Reviewed: 29th October 2026
Theatre Muse UK Rating : *****
