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Wytch
Newcastle Castle Keep
Friday 14th October
to Monday 31st October 2016
This
October, one of the most mysterious and sinister parts of Newcastle’s history will be
exposed inside the fortress that gives the city its name. The makers of
‘Hitler’s Headquarters’, Twenty Seven Live, have teamed up with critically
acclaimed writer Lee Mattinson (Crocodiles, The Royal
Exchange, Season Ticket, Northern Stage) to present ‘Wytch’: a theatrical event
taking place at Newcastle Castle Keep.
By
the 17th century, the Castle had outgrown its defensive purpose and was being used
as a gaol for the county of Northumberland. Twenty Seven Live will
present their performances in the Great Hall of the historic building. Beneath
the audience’s feet lies the Castle’s basement where some of the accused
‘witches’ were imprisoned in the 17th century before their trials.
On
21st August, 1650, fourteen women and one
man – condemned as “the children of Satan” – were hanged on the Town Moor: the
largest mass execution for witchcraft in English history. This came towards the
end of an era of paranoia, hysteria and fraud, triggered by the English Civil
War.
The
witch trials of Newcastle were some of the most
notable in the country, and parallels can easily be drawn with the later Salem
Witch Trials in the U.S. State of Massachusetts.
Learning Officer at Newcastle Castle, David Silk, explains: “Newcastle had suffered a turbulent
decade with plague, and being besieged by the Scots in 1644. This all culminated
in a craze for witch-finding in 1649 and 1650. We are very excited to have Twenty
Seven Live bring to life the grisly past of our town, and that of one of the darkest
chapters in the Castle’s history.”
The
witches have more recently been in the local News, when their remains were dug
up in the graveyard of St Andrews Church on Newgate Street in 2008, reminding the
people of Newcastle of these women and their
unnerving deaths almost four hundred years ago.
‘WYTCH’
by Mattinson takes place outside the usual operating hours of the Keep, which
is the oldest surviving landmark in the city, and this production will shine a light
on some of the unfortunate characters that were imprisoned within its walls.
“Wytch
has been unlike any other project I've worked on. I'm usually faced with a blank
page on which I can write whatever my heart desires. But with Wytch, came the
responsibility to dramatise the very real executions of very real people with
little more than a list of names to hand. It explores a climate of paralysing
paranoia that lay hidden in the city's history all along and the baffling
reality that the world not once hung witches but also wizards.”
Tickets:
Wytch
runs from Friday 14th October until Monday
31st October 2016 at 7:30pm (with no shows on the
16th, 20th, 22nd, 29th and 30th)
Tickets
are £15, with £12.50 concessions and go on sale on the 5th September at 7pm.
See
https://www.ticketsource.co.uk/event/140797
to purchase, or www.twentysevenprodutionsuk.com
for videos, links and more information.
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