If you like your comedy with a spooky undercurrent look no further than Edy Hurst’s Wonderfull Discoverie of Witches in the Countie of Himself. This new show, coming to the Lowry in time for Halloween before touring, is an exploration of witchcraft, neurodivergence and, last but certainly not least, Vengaboys.
Hurst’s show draws on the famous witch trials in Pendle in Lancashire in 1612, part of a wave of nationwide trials when around 500 people - predominantly women – were executed. By using absurdist comedy Hurst skilfully pulls together diverse strands to produce a powerful piece of subversive, thought-provoking work.
It has its origins in Hurst studying fine art at Leeds University a decade ago. Onstage he still wears the pointy hat made of twigs he wore in his degree show. He looks back fondly on his student days: “I was always doing things that were funny, but I was also really interested in live art and performance. I became really interested in shamanism, the relationship that we have with spirituality, where we can accept that it's not real, but we can also accept that it's real at the same time. For my degree show I created this witchcrafty shaman folk persona.”
After university he performed on the circuit, often as a musical act. One previous show was inspired by HG Wells’ War of the Worlds. For his latest project the Manchester-based comedian has benefited from both financial and artistic support from the Lowry Theatre’s 'Developed With' Programme, a scheme that supports northern creatives and previously backed Sophie Willan.
Financial assistance from the Lowry and the Arts Council meant that he was able to do a clowning course and pay a director. Acclaimed comedian Joz Norris offered crucial dramaturgy advice during the process, “which has been amazing, wild.” He was also helped in the early stages by performers Mikey Bligh-Smith and Edinburgh Comedy Award Best Newcomer Joe Kent-Walters.
The input from Norris was vital: "Joz was amazing. I think having somebody who's had years of expertise of making similar sort of narrative-driven character but not quite character shows was really useful. It's like a tangle of different wires and they can help you untangle those wires."
He is also particularly grateful for the Lowry support: “They give you a lot of mentoring as well as financial support. I think especially for anyone in the comedy industry, that support just to take a risk and try things is a very rare opportunity.”
Hurst was already familiar with films ranging from the classic Vincent Price shocker Witchfinder General to A Field In England, the 1922 Swedish film Häxan and The VVitch, a 2015 folk horror film starring Anya Taylor-Joy.
He is also a fan of The Mighty Boosh and Inside No 9. The latter series has also touched on similar themes in episodes such as The Trial Of Elizabeth Gadge. When Hurst received a letter from his mother who had been looking into their ancestry and suggested that he might be connected to one of the Pendle families things really took shape.
The developent process included deeper research: “What was really helpful was the Wonderfull Discoverie of Witches in the Countie of Lancaster court document, which is available online. It documents the trials of the actual people and is the actual legal document. You can see how the witch trials were a way of suppression of women at the time.”
Beyond this serious theme Hurst also has a playful edge onstage, using elaborate props and physical humour, such as when he emerges from a cauldron (made by designer Lucy Sneddon): “Sometimes I’m deliberately being bad and having fun. That's more interesting to me. I feel like I've accidentally been making theatre that's funny for a long time. I found that Edy Hurst's Comedy Version of Jeff Wayne's Musical Version of H.G. Wells' Literary Version (Via Orson Welles' Radio Version and Steven Spielberg's Film Version) of the War of the Worlds did a lot better when it was listed as a comedy. I like the ambiguity of comedy. I think the thing with the Lowry support is having the space to be funny in a David Lynch Twin Peaks way. My show is definitely more silly and daft about vaguely spooky things.”
Hurst also talks about his neurodivergence in the show. Like a lot of perfomers he has recently been diagnosed with ADHD. Why, I asked him, do so many comedians seem to have ADHD? “I think there's probably a lot of ADHD about in society anyway. But also neurodivergent people are magnetised towards an industry where you choose your own hours, you're your own boss, and you get encouraged to be different and to share things about yourself that are unusual. You don't have to fit in, you can do your own thing.”
The third thread is Vengaboys. How does this Dutch Eurodance act who peaked in the late 1990s tie in? “This came about during lockdown, it's one of these things that became a sort of special interest. One of the annoying things about my head, is that I don't necessarily get to choose what I'm thinking about a lot. I'll pick at an idea for a long time, and I won't really know why. So, like, what does it mean to be magic? Or did the Vengaboys make a concept album?
“They both just kind of happened to me," he continues. ”My daughter loved the Vengaboys when she was a baby, and I've got my mum doing a voiceover for the show. I think it's important to have this intergenerational representation of my family in the show."
So, one final burning question. Does he believe in witchcraft? “That’s a really good question. I think we're quite arrogant as people in terms of how our heads work for logic, because we're creatures of emotion, and we are creatures of superstition. We think that we can explain and control everything. But also do we need to? There's some things that are beautiful and mysterious that we don't have to know.”
Edy Hurst’s Wonderfull Discoverie of Witches in the Countie of Himself is at The Lowry, Salford on October 31 and November 1 and then touring. Dates and details here.
Picture: Andy Hollingowrth
