Craig pitches for the Witches

Inspirational director and choreographer Craig Revel Horwood is back at The Watermill with musical comedy The Witches of Eastwick. Trish Lee managed to snatch a few minutes with him last week between rehearsals and ‘notes’ and asked him for a ‘five-minute pitch’
TL: You bring the sun with you to The Watermill every time...
CRH: I know. It’s good for my skin. I’m Australian you know.
So...I really meant to do The Witches of Eastwick many, many years ago. But I didn’t. Even got as far as auditions maybe 10 years ago, but it didn’t come off. Then I came across it again, here at The Watermill and I’m loving it.
It’s a story of love and war, selfishness and repercussion – the audience will learn something about themselves while they are taken on this fantastical journey of witches and demons.
Don’t expect the 1987 movie starring Jack Nicholson, Cher, Susan Sarandon and Michelle Pfeiffer.
The cast of actor musicians bring an enormous amount of music to the stage – everyone plays an instrument – even if they didn’t before. One of them had just a weekend to learn the drumkit.
They have to sing and dance. I always try to employ a lot of wit into the choreography. The actor/musos aren’t really dancers but they have to dance.
This is a devilishly delicious comedy.
Demonic Darryl Van Horne arrives in sleepy Eastwick, and seduces a ‘coven’ of three divorcees, whose fantasies have summoned him. He controls their bodies, imbues them with magical abilities, releases their inner power.
TL: Novelist John Updike said the book was his ‘attempt to make things right with my – what shall we call them – feminist detractors’
CRH: But it’s not a feminist issue.
The women become strong, powerful – they’re not being taken for a ride... but even this backfires. He becomes the devil inside them and they realise he’s not the man they wanted after all...
It’s quite dark... but in a funny way. On stage we have enormous fun with it.
The Witches of Eastwick runs at The Watermill until Sptember 14. Visit