A few branches and linen-looking sheets, fresh air and husbandry, home produce and homemade felt. How simple! Here’s permaculture, with a touch of children’s story narration, a one-eyed cat and some fine song and dance, all amid the beautiful changing seasons. How sweet!
NOT when it is Bryony Kimmings’ take on the reality of uprooting for love, being a mackerel out of water, having a huge personal hole to fill, and a bog calling you to surrender to the witch.
Bryony Kimmings’ exploration of life and climate changes makes the sweet saucy and the simple complex. Bog Witch – showing Kimmings’ own reluctant move to the country – is fantastically full of cynical city-slick humour, hilarious and highly adept physicality and wit, and strange rural practices. The unexpected is peppered with the expected-but-brilliantly-delivered-anyway, making a comic show that is bold, brash, entertaining and also a very real tale of struggle, loss and discovery. This journey is subtly supported by changes in narration and language that reflect aspects of the new, bog-centred life and how Kimmings’ sinks into it.
Design similarly can feel simple while being highly skilled, especially in its support of Kimmings’ story. All is as deeply rooted as the great oak tree getting in the way of the view from her office-in-a-barn. The production has musicality in overall soundscape as well as actual score, and is rich in atmosphere, with detailed visuals of lighting and animated projections joining the sound to create both the external world and Kimmings’ internal landscape. While a remark on the show feeling a bit long was heard, for others the passing of the seasons flows quite magically and compellingly. Audience reactions also showed human differences in what moves us, but if one part doesn’t quite land, there are likely to be others that do.
Direction includes a decision to have audience participation – truly voluntary, don’t worry – and this is used to great effect. Kimmings and co-director Francesca Murray-Fuentes bring all the show’s elements together for a powerful, stand-up funny, laugh out loud performance that also invites you to feel deeply, possibly cry, and maybe even howl (or make some other animal noises).
‘Bog Witch’ runs until 30th August at Traverse Theatre with tickets available at https://www.traverse.co.uk
Some of the other creatives involved:
Composer: Tom Parkinson
Sound Designer: Lewis Gibson
Video Projections Designer / Projections: Will Duke
Animators: Raf Vartanian & Nathan Fernée
Set & Costume Designer: Tom Rogers
Choreographer & Associate Director: Sarah Blanc
Reviewer: Danielle Farrow
Reviewed: 9th August 2026
North West End UK / Theatre Muse UK Rating: