BWW Reviews: BELL, BOOK AND CANDLE, Greenwich Playhouse, November 10 2011

Fifty years before JK Rowling created her world of weird witches living clandestinely amongst everyday society, John van Druten did the same thing in Bell, Book and Candle, his Manhattan romcom. Revived at the Greenwich Playhouse (until 4 December), it's a perfect tonic for the grim, grey days of November and continues this venue's stylish, sexy, storytelling after October's The Provoked Wife.

Gillian (Zoe Teverson, naughtily flirtatious in a succession of sensational outfits) is a restless witch, bored with spells and tiring of the thriving witch subculture of practical joking, sordid nightclubbing and bitchy feuding. She spies wealthy but ordinary Shepherd (Stephen Cavanagh -a muggle and a mug), who rents the upstairs apartment and attempts to seduce him - unsuccessfully. On realising that Shepherd is about to announce his engagement to her college enemy, Gillian abandons human (and humane) methods, casts a spell through her familiar Pyewacket, and Shepherd is soon in Gillian's arms, bewitched in more senses than one.

And that would be that were it not for the intervention of Gillian's aunt Queenie (Carole Street in a fine comic turn) and brother Nicky (Duncan Macinnes, all slithery charm) who are less than pleased with Gillian's (literal) embrace of the non-witching world and plot to stop the romance by fair means or foul. They are assisted, not always consciously, by Sidney Redlitch (John Sears) author of books on the witch subculture, but a man more interested in the next drink than the next potion.

After an overly-wordy first half, the second half picks up pace and, with Gillian's transformation from self-centred witchery to empathetic human values beautifully executed by Ms Teverson, progresses to a poignant climax. Sure enough, it's a feelgood romcom after all.

Except it isn't just that, as the off-stage world of witches and warlocks reported by fun-loving Nicky and Queenie seems altogether more interesting and exciting than the on-stage world offered by dull, dull, dull Shepherd, a fine representative of the flock-like character of the muggle world where everyone does what everyone else does without really knowing why.

The answer to the paradox at the heart of the play might be found in John van Druten's closet gayness in 50's America. The witches and warlock's secret subculture of easy sex and subversion may well be his portrait of gay society in New York at that time - sure it has its bitching and backbiting, but there's a lot of fun too and all the witches and warlocks know the other witches and warlocks, but nobody betrays their secret life to outsiders too stupid or too blinkered to see what's under their noses.

Bell Book and Candle may appear to be a light, sophisticated straight comedy, but really it's paean to a secret gay subculture that was soon to be swept away by the liberation movements of the Sixties.

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