Suranne Jones: Investigating Witch Trials review: With that blood-curdling cackle, Suranne should be cast as witch, writes CHRISTOPHER STEVENS
Suranne Jones has a blood-curdling cackle. She can also howl like a wolf under a full moon, and she seems quite fond of chanting incantations.
I feel sure she would never lay a curse upon an incautious telly critic who failed to heap praise on her performances, but I might exercise more care in future (not that she ever merits anything less than superlatives — magnificent in Doctor Foster, powerful in Vigil, full list of plaudits available to her agent on request).
The two-part documentary Investigating Witch Trials sees her striding across the landscape in a long woollen coat to quiz historians, like a combination of Lucy Worsley and Gentleman Jack.
As she unravelled the story of how, for 200 years, Puritans persecuted and murdered people — most of them women — accused of practising witchcraft, she also revealed a yearning to try a little white magic for herself.
Suranne Jones has a blood-curdling cackle. She can also howl like a wolf under a full moon, and she seems quite fond of chanting incantations
I feel sure she would never lay a curse upon an incautious telly critic who failed to heap praise on her performances, but I might exercise more care in future (not that she ever merits anything less than superlatives — magnificent in Doctor Foster, powerful in Vigil, full list of plaudits available to her agent on request)
It began with that cackle, half shriek and half death rattle, a sound straight out of fairy tales. She did it so well that she surprised even herself. 'Oh! That's a good laugh,' she gasped. 'Someone, cast me as a witch.'
In a series of chats with folklorists and academics, she learned the story of the Pendle witches —eight women and two men from Lancashire executed in 1612, after the intervention of King James I.
She ventured to Germany, where nearly 20,000 women were tortured and killed as witches. To save the show from unrelenting grimness, she met pop star Natasha Khan, alias Bat For Lashes, who read her fortune in tarot cards and taught her to bay like a coyote. 'That's better than a headache tablet,' Suranne announced.
All this was linked with lots of atmospheric close-up shots of cobwebs and mushrooms.
The two-part documentary Investigating Witch Trials sees her striding across the landscape in a long woollen coat to quiz historians, like a combination of Lucy Worsley and Gentleman Jack
It's a pity she isn't delving into the more recent history of witchcraft — still very real in the 20th century. I grew up within sight of Meon Hill near Stratford-upon-Avon, scene of a notorious ritualistic murder. The body of a farmer named Charles Walton was found there on St Valentine's Day, 1945 — his throat cut and his head pinned to the ground by a pitchfork. Thirty years later, locals still whispered of satanic rites.
The previous year saw the last witchcraft trials in Britain. A spiritualist medium named Helen Duncan was jailed, accused of supernatural spying after apparently relaying messages from drowned British sailors, before the loss of their ships had been officially announced.
Suranne did make the connection between the bullying and victimisation of women centuries ago and today. 'Women were silenced,' she said. 'It's still a big issue.'
But she didn't draw the obvious parallel with the demonisation now of women who dare to insist on the biological differences between the sexes — so-called TERFs, whose champion is the queen of all witches and wizards, J.K. Rowling.
The episode ended with Suranne joining a coven for prayers and spells on a moonlit night. Everyone took it very seriously, but broomsticks are optional.
