Gunter review – strange tale of murder, witchcraft and football fizzes with fairground energy

A trio of women dressed in football kits enact a witch trial as an anarchic piece of gig theatre. It is as strange as it sounds, extravagantly unrefined and sometimes abstruse but it brings a garish, outlier, fairground energy which feels vital and exciting in a space for showcasing new work.

The trial of 1604, excavated from the annals of half-documented history by co-creator, Lydia Higman, began with a football match.

Brian Gunter, the richest man in the village, killed two brothers at the match and got away with their murders. When their mother, Elizabeth Gregory, would not let the deaths go quietly, he accused her of bewitching his daughter, Anne. An account of Anne Gunter’s life was unearthed in the 1990s and as a play based on incomplete historical record, it contains a plaintive, emphatic, uncertainty.

Co-created by Rachel Lemon who directs, and Julia Grogan, who alongside Higman alternately performs all the parts along with Hannah Jarrett-Scott and Norah Lopez Holden, it is a story of murder, male power, local vendetta and family abuse which went from an Oxfordshire village to the court of King James I.

As a witch trial, it seems as if it might head into familiar ground – a powerful man smearing a less powerful woman – but it develops in surprising ways, with more surprise in its enactment.

First seen at the Edinburgh Festival last year, it brings the fringe’s messy, improvisational spirit, but that is no bad thing. As a devised piece, it seems like different, more dangerous fare than the work recently aired in the Upstairs space of the venue.

The music, composed by Higman, is intense and compelling while Anna Orton’s set is barely there: an empty white box in which to raise the past with as much playfulness as possible (the actors’ white football kit is quickly splattered with mud and blood).

The production loses its drive at times and seems longer than its 70 minutes, while some scenes lack definition. But the central concept works and better to have a scrappy play than a neat one with not half as much adventure and creative virtuosity. I wait to see what this company does next.