The Good John Proctor review – Salem gears up for witch hunting

Rumour-mongering … Sabrina Wu and Amber Sylvia Edwards in The Good John Proctor at Jermyn Street theatre. Photograph: Jack Sain

We are in Salem a year before the witchcraft trials of 1692. Rumblings of wrongdoing are filtered through children’s games, night-time conversations and the gossip or grisly rumour that wafts into the lives of young Betty Parris (Sabrina Wu) and Abigail Williams (Anna Fordham).

Talene Monahon’s play, performed as part of Footprints festival, speaks to the historical events of the trials, and, specifically it seems, to Arthur Miller’s 1953 play, The Crucible.