"Abigail" by Laura Turner & Steve Gillard

Live Stream from The Space, London

The play is being performed by Fury Theatre. Fury Theatre is a female-led theatre company making work for national and international audiences, centred on the female experience, the female gaze and the female voice.

"Abigail" brings to the stage the untold story of the true-life character of Abigail Williams. The accuser, running from the Salem Witch Trial. A young woman, dismissed by history, lost in a world she cannot comprehend. This piece puts Abigail herself, and not the events of the Salem Witch Trials, at the heart of the drama, exploring the emotional and psychological effects an event such as Salem may have had on a young, vulnerable woman. The play is set in Massachusetts in 1692, but this isn’t the story of the history books.

This is a world that is alive with music, passion, danger and deceit. Abigail will fall into the traps of this world, but she will also revel in its decadence, debauchery and excess, as revealed when Abigail and her friend Mercy roll into Boston looking for a new start and stay at Mrs Constance's boarding house, with the emphasis on bawd!

There they meet the barmaid, Milly, after Jack has recommended them to the boarding house, a place also frequented by Marshall Joshua Goodman. The Marshall tries to warn Abigail about Jack, but his warnings fall on deaf ears.

Throughout the play there is the question as to how much a person is worth, which makes you think of the various levels that this could be answered.

Abigail is revisited several times by Solvi, a woman who Abigail accused of being a witch and was put to death as part of the Salem Witch trials, and we discover the real reason why Abigail was afraid of her.

We also see why Jack is being so nice to both Mercy and Abigail, and discover his dark side.

We get to see why the Marshall turns a blind eye to what is really going on at the boarding house and Jack's "management".

One joy of this live stream that I had the pleasure of watching was you get to see the various camera angles and skills, and there is one particular scene, the love scene between Abigail and Jack, where the camera pans away from the action into the dark, and then back to the couple.

I was half expecting waves crashing on the shore, trains going in and out of a tunnel and fireworks going off, well in my head anyway. This scene though was quite pivotal as Abigail is inhibited, whereas previously she held her, and her feelings back, and it also brought her down to earth with a bump when reality finally hit.

There is a level of violence throughout and strong language, again this drives home the reality of the story, a story that could be relevant even in today's society.

The ending is quite brutal and goes almost full circle, but I'm not going to spoil that, just in case you want to go and see this production in London.

The cast are Laura Turner (Abigail), Sophie Jane Corner (Solvi), Lucy Sherre-Cooper (Mercy), Sophie Kamal (Mrs Constance), Sarah Isbell (Milly), James Green (Jack) and Nathan Haymer-bates (Marshall Joshua Goodman).

This probably wasn't the easiest of plays for the cast to perform due to the subject matter, but I found myself drawn deep into the story and the characters, and having no preview or incite into the story, knew not where it was going, and that is where the shock factor crept in, and that, along with everything else about the play, I loved.

Very well acted, with plenty of passion from all involved. the intimate scenes were done with great care and the fight choreography was realistic, which is why I found myself taking an intake of breath at several points.

Directed brilliantly by Steve Gillard.

The sets were well thought out with a split set dividing the bar scenes from the bedroom scenes and the street scenes played out in front, to separate them from the rest. A clever soundscape as well provided the back drop in your mind to position the action.

"Abigail" is being performed at The Space in London until Saturday 7 May, but will now be available on demand online for two weeks. Tickets for the online version and the final live performances are all available through the Space Theatre website, space.org.uk