A joyous celebration of young women

Jerwood Downstairs at Royal Court Theatre

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It’s set in rural America. It’s about teenage girls in a high school. It has a point to make and it makes it. There are many reasons why I shouldn’t like  Kimberly Belflower‘s play John Proctor is the Villain. And yet I loved it.

Why? Well, let’s begin at the end: an uplifting, liberating finale for the young women whose world we have inhabited for the last couple of hours. The previously mundane classroom lighting becomes a euphoric light show as the girls dance to Green Light by Lorde, defiantly in unison ,and unified behind the abused women of The Crucible. I had a tear of joy in my eye.

If you’re anything like me (old white male), it may be a world you’ve scarcely encountered before. For women, the girls’ friendships, their passion and their early encounters with sex will likely resonate more. It doesn’t matter. One of play’s defining strengths is the authenticity with which it draws these young women, compelling you to care about them, regardless of your age, gender or background. The dialogue is believable, and often very funny, inviting us to laugh both with and at the girls. It captures the angst and rapture, the confidence and vulnerability, of standing on the brink of adulthood.

So where does the play begin? The year is 2018. We’re in a high school classroom in a ‘one-stoplight town’ in Georgia. A class of four 16 to 17 year old girls, and a couple of boys, are studying Arthur Miller’s The Crucible under the guidance of a charismatic teacher called Carter Smith. He’s approachable, affable and speaks their language. Unsurprisingly, they adore him.

Momentous events unfold, but don’t expect subtext and intricate layers. The girls are who they are and don’t really change. They are affected not by internal transformation of the kind John Proctor undergoes in The Crucible, but from the external circumstances that confront them.

What evolves in the play is their perception of society- both their immediate environment and the wider world.  This is the time when the #MeToo movement is at its most visible and influential. The girls form a feminist group. All is going well until Shelby returns after several months of unexplained absence. Tensions rise. Raelynn is far from pleased: the two had been best friends until Raelynn’s boyfriend Lee cheated on her with Shelby. Lee remains in the class. Oh, and Ivy is in a predicament because her father, whom she reveres, has had an affair with his secretary.

Through the prism of #MeToo and their own lived experiences, they begin to recognise both the ways in which a male-dominated society seeks to diminish them and the power inherent in their identity and friendship. To Mr Smith, The Crucible‘s John Proctor is one of the great heroes of literature, admired for defying the Witch Trials, until Shelby prompts a re-evaluation. Does this married man’s affair with a young servant, who he later calls a ‘whore’, make him less a hero, more a villain? The subsequent discussion ends in a bombshell.

The young women deliver remarkable performances. The future of British acting is safe, if they are anything to go by. A standout is Sadie Soverall as the troubled but clever Shelby. Miya James brings a rare stillness and intensity to Raelynn. Lauren Ajufo is Nell, the girl who comes from a big city, Holly Howden Gilchrist is the swot and ‘teacher’s pet’ Beth, and Clare Hughes is the straightlaced Ivy. Much credit is surely due to director Damya Taymor (who also directed the Broadway production) for eliciting such nuanced work.

The other actors complete a formidable ensemble. Dónal Finn is entirely convincing as the smiling, superficially charming teacher. He’s a magnetic actor, who seems ubiquitous at the moment, having appeared on stage in Hadestown, is also currently to be seen on screen in The Other Bennet Sister and Young Sherlock. Charlie Borg makes the most of the smaller role of Lee, a representative sexist male. Reece Braddock as the dopey but sympathetic Mason and Molly McFadden as the inexperienced young counsellor are both making their professional stage debuts, but you really wouldn’t know it from the quality and confidence of their acting.

The design, by AMP featuring Teresa L. Williams, initially presents a naturalistic classroom complete with blackboard, fluorescent lights and daylight filtering through the windows. Yet appearances are deceptive. Natasha Katz‘s lighting isolates characters in moments of revelation, while the ecstatic final sequence, when the girls challenge the male hierarchy, plunges the room into chaos through jarring projections and a striking mauve wash.

It’s sadly true that #MeToo doesn’t seem to have made more than a small dent in the ways of the world. We remain surrounded by stark examples of male toxicity: figures such as Harvey Weinstein, Jeffrey Epstein and Mohamed Al Fahed are high profile examples, but far too often, in everyday life, those in positions of authority- teachers, fathers and other men take advantage of women and girls. In a city near me, a number of male teachers at a girls’ school have recently been prosecuted for sexually abusing their students.

There may be an element of wish fulfilment in the rapid ideological awakening of these girls (and one of the boys) to feminism. Ordinarily, I would resist a drama whose message hammers me so hard on the head, but this joyous play is irresistible.

This year marks the 70th anniversary of the Royal Court Theatre, which in 1956 became the first British theatre to stage The Crucible. While John Proctor is a Villain may not possess the same depth and complexity as Miller’s masterpiece, it offers something equally valuable: a thought-provoking and thoroughly enjoyable night out at the theatre.

Paul was given a review ticket by the theatre. The review was slightly revised for clarity on 7 April 2026.

John Proctor is the Villain can be seen at Jerwood Theatre Downstairs at The Royal Court Theatre in London until 25 April 2026. Buy tickets direct from the theatre

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