A reviews round-up for the new Shakespeare’s Globe production of Arthur Miller’s The Crucible in London.
Directed by Ola Ince, The Crucible is now playing at Shakespeare’s Globe until 12 July 2025.
Read reviews from TimeOut, The Times, The Guardian and more, with further reviews to be added.
The Crucible stars Gavin Drea (Wedding Season) as John Proctor, Hannah Saxby (Some Demon) as Abigail Williams, Phoebe Pryce (The Importance of Being Earnest) as Elizabeth Proctor, and Jo Stone-Fewings (Home I’m Darling) as Reverend Hale.
The wider cast includes Sarah Belcher as Ann Putnam / Sarah Good, Sarah Cullum as Martha Corey / Ruth Putnam / Cover, Joshua Dunn as Cheever, Steve Furst as Reverend Parris, James Groom as Willard / Cover, Joanne Howarth as Rebecca Nurse, Molly Madigan as Mercy Lewis / Cover, Aisha-Mae McCormick as Susanna Walcott / Cover, Stuart McQuarrie as Thomas Putnam / Judge Hathorne, Sarah Merrifield as Tituba, Scarlett Nunes as Betty Parris, Glyn Pritchard as Francis Nurse, Gareth Snook as Deputy Governor Danforth, Howard Ward as Giles Corey, and Bethany Wooding as Mary Warren.
See more photos and videos of The Crucible
Joining Ola Ince in the creative team of The Crucible are: Amelia Jane Hankin is Set and Costume Designer, Renell Shaw is Music Composer, Lindsay McAllister is Assistant Director, Kevin McCurdy is Fight Director, Ebony Molina is Movement Director, Raniah Al-Sayed is Intimacy Director, Annemette Verspeak is Text and Voice coach, and Becky Paris CDG is Casting Director.
In The Crucible, consumed by paranoia, superstition and a ruthless sense of justice, a climate of fear and mass hysteria sweeps through the town of Salem, Massachusetts when rumours grow that a group of girls are practising witchcraft. What lies are the townspeople prepared to tell themselves in order to survive?
The Crucible is playing at Shakespeare’s Globe from 8 May to 12 July 2025.
The Crucible is part of Shakespeare’s Globe’s new 2025 season, including productions of Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet, The Merry Wives of Windsor, Twelfth Night and Troilus and Cressida. More about the 2025 season.
Book tickets to The Crucible at Shakespeare’s Globe in London
What are the critics saying about The Crucible?
The Times
★★★
“A stolid, no-frills revival at the Globe”
“The tempo drags, but Gavin Drea brings quiet dignity to the lead role in Arthur Miller’s portrait of the Salem witch trials”
“It certainly makes sense to bring Arthur Miller’s portrait of the Salem witch trials to the period stage of the Globe. No gimmicks, no ultra-modern conceits. Ola Ince’s stolid, no-frills production possesses the aura of a travelling show that has pitched its tents by the Thames and set out its wares for the passing public.”
“If the tempo drags during the lengthy first-half exposition, the groundlings find themselves drawn into the tumult in the courtroom scene, witnesses and officials taking their places among the audience. This is, you suspect, what it may have felt like to be immersed in a community at the mercy of superstition, rumour or malicious gossip.”
“Gavin Drea, though, brings quiet dignity to the role of John Proctor, the independently minded farmer”
“A long evening leaves you feeling that you too have done a full day in the fields. Even so, the moment when the girls seem to give themselves up to evil spirits offers a raw, chilling glimpse of the supernatural.”
Clive Davis, The Times
Read the review
More reviews by Clive Davis
More The Times reviews
TimeOut
★★★
“Ola Ince directs Arthur Miller’s bombastic allegorical tragedy as if it was a storyline in ‘The Archers’”
“Ola Ince’s recent productions for the Globe include a gritty police procedural Othello and a modern dress Romeo and Juliet that was so progressive it made the front page of The Sun (‘Wokeo and Juliet’, the headline screamed). It’s therefore somewhat surprising that – aesthetically speaking – hers is by far the most trad take on Arthur Miller’s The Crucible I’ve ever seen”
“But after a little while adjusting to the production’s rhythms it becomes apparent that Ince has done something quite distinctive with The Crucible: she’s directed it like an episode of The Archers. By that I mean she’s tuned down the bombast and supernatural elements and essentially played it as a naturalistic drama about the eccentric, bickering inhabitants of Salem, Massachusetts. This is carried off surprisingly smoothly, at least at first.”
“Locked in a state of permanent, bitter brooding, Drea’s Proctor lights up only when he first encounters Abigail and otherwise drifts guiltily to his end.”
“In general, it works pretty well. But the fact of the matter is that The Crucible actually is bombastic, and in the final furlong Ince’s production suffers from underplaying events.”
“It’s a valid and interesting take that both gains and loses from toning things down. And even reined in, it looks pretty spectacular under the darkening London skies – it’s the first American tragedy ever staged at the Globe, and it shouldn’t be the last.”
Andrzej Lukowski, TimeOut
Read the review
More reviews by Andrzej Lukowski
More TimeOut reviews
The Guardian
★★★
“Ola Ince brings absurdist comedy to Arthur Miller’s classic”
“This production is faithful to the original 17th-century setting. But director Ola Ince brings a quietly radical touch in the form of humour – more absurdist than comic, with accusations of flying girls and demon possession taking on preposterous tones.
“A few songs by composer Renell Shaw give the town’s girls and women a greater voice in an otherwise dutiful revival which flies in the first half but slows to a trudge by the third act.””
“there is some fine acting from Gavin Drea as John Proctor and Hannah Saxby as his sometime lover, Abigail Williams”
“Amelia Jane Hankin’s set design has a Quaker bareness, pious and unadorned, with wooden bedsteads and big kitchen tables. “
“It is a shame the pace slows to such a degree (performed at three hours on press night). Even so, discretely powerful scenes go some way to bringing the tension back, and as the first Miller play to be staged at the Globe it is a powerfully pertinent choice.”
Arifa Akbar, The Guardian
Read the review
More reviews by Arifa Akbar
More The Guardian reviews
The Evening Standard
★★★
“The Globe take on Arthur Miller’s endlessly relevant play with broad strokes”
“Ola Ince’s solid and well-acted production somehow doesn’t hit right in the open space of the Globe, even though the venue should feel closer to the world of the play than a theatre of more modern design. The script’s solemnities and its artful recreation of archaic puritan language provoke discomfited laughter here rather than shock and awe.”
“A good Crucible, but not a great one.”
Nick Curtis, The Evening Standard
Read the review
More reviews by Nick Curtis
More The Evening Standard reviews
The Stage
★★
“Unconvincing…Incoherent ensemble drama”
“Stripping the subtlety and grounding realism out of Arthur Miller’s 1953 masterpiece about mass hysteria and the dangers of blindly submitting to authority, this incoherent ensemble drama, directed by Ola Ince, never feels believable.”
“Miller’s play – which hinges on establishing a mood of inescapable claustrophobia – is an awkward fit for the open-air space. The uneven cast flounders between projecting out to the audience, forcing in unnecessary punchlines, and jokily acknowledging every passing plane, continually puncturing the building tension.”
Dave Fargnoli, The Stage
Read the review
More reviews by Dave Fargnoli
More The Stage reviews
Average Rating: 2.8 Stars based on 5 reviews
CriticScore: 56 based on 5 reviews
The Crucible
Shakespeare’s Globe, London
Offer: Save up to 29%
Book tickets
📷 Main photo: The Crucible at Shakespeare’s Globe. Photo by Marc Brenner
More >
More >