Review: GUNTER, Royal Court Theatre

Gunter is a messy play. Literally. By the time the show ends, there’s sand, dirt, blood, confetti, and ink all over the actors and the floor. Fringe company Dirty Hare throw absolutely everything at their canvas, in a piece that includes music, projection, microphones, shadow puppetry, and masks. In this rare gem of a show, however, it all sticks. Usually, when critics refer to a show as ‘messy’, it’s a bad thing. When I call Gunter messy, I mean it with the utmost praise. 

In 1604, a football game took place in a village near Oxford. At the game, Brian Gunter bashed two boys' heads together, killing them both, leaving their mother Elizabeth Gregory desperate for revenge. This triggered an increasingly strange series of events, as Gunter accused Elizabeth of bewitching and possessing his daughter Anne. What followed was a series of trials, attempting to determine whether witchcraft was indeed involved in the case. In Dirty Hare’s retelling of this true story, the company reach back into the past, pulling out surprises like a magician pulling a rabbit from his hat. 

Co-created by Lydia Higman, Julia Grogan, and Rachel Lemon, this is no traditional history play. The many characters involved are all portrayed by three young women, who shift from hulking patriarchs to scared young girls and ageing monarchs. Alongside them, Higman is onstage as the Historian, who speaks from the present day as well as accompanying the story on guitar and drums. Historical records become unnatural dances and guttural screams, in a production that grabs your attention and doesn’t let go.

The design and stagecraft of Gunter is truly remarkable. With the whole piece taking place on a white blank canvas, the mess creates an image of a village in chaos. Some of the most gasp-worthy sequences involve shadows, created with movable floodlights and a huge fabric backdrop, bringing the seventeenth century world of possession and suspicion into the world of twenty-first Century Theatre. From its original run at Summerhall, designer Anna Orton has levelled up the set, making it a visual spectacle as much as it is a feat of storytelling.

Gunter’s underlying intelligence and sharpness is only fully revealed as the play approaches its conclusion. In the final ten or so minutes, it transforms from a thrilling historical account into something bold and metatheatrical, unpicking the very nature of performance and of history. The show’s themes of feminism and patriarchy are entangled in its roots without being made overly explicit, leaving them all the more impactful. The show does perhaps take a little while to settle into itself, but director Rachel Lemon ensures that all of the onstage chaos has a point to it, finding reason in the riot. 

At the heart of all of this technical and historical wizardry are three brilliant performances. Hannah Jarrett-Scott brings real gravitas and masculine swagger to her main role as Brian, while co-creator Julia Grogan shifts effortlessly between parts, with impressive movement and voice work. The standout performance comes from Norah Lopez Holden as Anne, writhing and yelling, singing and crying with commitment that makes her performance almost difficult to watch. Tucked away in the corner, meanwhile, Higman becomes a one-woman band, playing her own original folk rock compositions. The show’s haunting score adds another dimension to an already original piece of theatre, infusing the script with energy and rhythm. 

In the published script, Gunter’s co-creators talk about how the show was built through an R&D process in cheap rehearsal rooms and Quaker halls on a shoestring budget. From there, the team went on to win a Fringe First award, as well as being celebrated in Playbill and The Stage, and eventually making it to the Royal Court – a real Fringe theatre success story.

As Grogan mentions, this only serves to highlight how much of a shame it is that it’s so difficult to make Fringe-scale work at the moment. With rehearsal spaces closing, venue prices increasing, and opportunities like Vault Festival shutting down, it’s harder than ever for shows like this to get made. The talent is out there, as Gunter proves, it’s just harder and harder to get ideas like this to the stage.

Gunter is less of a play, and more of an uninhibited, ritualistic yell. It’s an idea that really shouldn’t work – who would think to recount a 17th century witch trial through physical theatre and folk rock music? – but absolutely does. It’s the raw conviction through which Anne’s story is told that makes this such an exhilarating piece of theatre. 

Gunter runs at the Royal Court (Jerwood Theatre Upstairs) until 25 April

Photo Credits: Alex Brenner

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