EDINBURGH 2023: GUNTER Q&A

BWW caught up with Dirty Hare (Julia Grogan, Lydia Higman and Rachel Lemon) to chat about bringing Gunter to the 2023 Edinburgh Festival Fringe.
 

Tell us a bit about GUNTER.

GUNTER is a (very creative) reimagining of an unbelievable, but real, 1604 possession case. It is the story of Anne Gunter; a 19 year old who seemingly becomes possessed. Her father Brian Gunter is determined to have another woman, Elizabeth, executed for witchcraft.

As well as our historian and musician Lydia, there are three incredible performers in the show: Norah Lopez Holden, Hannah Jarrett-Scott, and Julia Grogan. Together we are cooking up something special (whilst working out how we make a person swallow pins - shout out to the brilliant magician Patrick Ashe who’s working with us to make this possible!)

Why did you feel this was an important story to tell?

We’ll try our best not to give away the big surprise of the show here...

But something our historian Lydia has always said in the making of this show is that history rhymes. She makes our company more awake to the idea that history isn’t linear, it doesn’t just progress, it reappears in different forms. It’s sneaky like that.

We feel Anne’s story is important to tell because she was a real person and what happened to her must have been really, really, really horrible. And sad. And even though we’re way too late there is some sort of retribution in showing a small Edinburgh Fringe audience Brian Gunter’s true colours.

Hopefully, through telling her story, which still rhymes 400 years later, people might be a little bit more open to noticing the same patterns and, maybe, having the bravery to confront them.

Sorry to be sentimental.

Where else might we have seen your work?

As a company, Dirty Hare, we previously made Belly Up together which was on at the Turbine Theatre. Belly Up was similarly historical (which is what you get from having a historian in the company) about a woman who pleads the belly (says she’s pregnant) in order to not get hanged. History and live music but a bit less horror than GUNTER.

- Rachel Lemon is a director who previously made Bottom for Summerhall and then Soho Theatre, as well as being an associate director at the Royal Court and the Globe.

- Julia Grogan wrote her debut play, PLAYFIGHT, at the Royal Court writers group. She is currently an RSC Writer on Attachment and part of the Channel 4 Screenwriters’ Course.

- You can check Lydia’s band Iris & Steel out on Instagram!

What is special about the presentation of the piece?

The story is a very strange one and rising up to meet it has been an incredible challenge.

It’s been really special to explore having a historian on stage, to see how we can change perception, focus and engage the imagination.

There’s also “Anne’s Big Performance” at the start of Act Two, where she performs possession. So how you do that has been a massive question in itself. We hope we’ve taken on the challenge with bravery and spirit - as well as a lot of help from Patrick, our magician.

There’s loads of really incredible music, some folk, some blues, some outright bangers.

So we would say the historian, the music, the magic and the very very twisty story make it very special indeed. Have we mentioned the bear, the bath and honey?

What would you like audiences to take away from it?

Witches have haunted the human imagination with remarkable persistence, and we hope people walk away with a new perspective on that witch with the black hat and the cat.

We hope audiences walk away with more understanding of those who believed in witchcraft and of those who found themselves accused.

We hope people walk out into the night after seeing GUNTER, holding the final image of Anne in their head, and go and have a good messy liberating dance. Or, failing that, tell a friend that Anne Gunter existed and tell them what happened to her.

Tickets are available here: 

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