The Lullaby Witch

Leona Cash is a music journalist who spends her time in dingy clubs listening to the newest bands whilst bantering with her intern. However, her comfortable existence is threatened when she becomes embroiled in a murder investigation and decides to turn sleuth.   

From here The Lullaby Witch rattles along pleasantly enough, with enough twists and turns to prevent you from getting bored. Infused with dark fairytale, there’s a satisfying bedtime-story-for-grown-ups feel about Mark Griffith‘s play.

The production's problems come with the lack of consistency in the world which Griffiths creates. His London is neither fantastical enough to be a Neverland creation nor accurate enough to chime with gritty reality. Even Leona feels remarkably one dimensional, more plot point than force of change.

As soon as you begin to examine the narrative of The Lullaby Witch it begins to disintegrate. There’s an irrationality, bordering on casualness, in many of the defining moments: would one review from a non-theatre critic in the Evening Standard really be enough to close a play? Small dissension it may be, but as soon as you find one within this play more begin to unravel.

Within this, Laura Harper sustains The Lullaby Witch with skill and charisma, never letting the pace drop. The staging, however, is unimaginative, consisting largely of lots of walking around a desk, and makes her job all the more difficult.  

As a pulpy, reasonably entertaining sixty minutes, The Lullaby Witch succeeds. It fails, however, to deliver anything more substantial.