Which-Craft? @ The Arch at Holden Street Theatres, Adelaide 27/2/2019
On a hot summer Wednesday night an intimate sized audience gathered in The Arch at Holden Street Theatres to watch CCtheatreCo’s current production of Which-Craft? for the 2019 Adelaide Fringe Festival.
Written, directed and starring CCtheatreCo creator Caroline Cook (aka CC) as the ugly witch Charisma Snitch, Which-Craft? is the story of the Wormwood sisters Octavia (Janelle Skuse) and Mina (Jordan Noble) who have fallen upon financial hard times due to the failure of their spells. They are struggling to make rent payments. Together with Charisma, the sisters devise a plan to generate more power to create better spells to sell. To generate power, they require more fans, so they hit the reality television circuit to increase their popularity and appeal. We follow the trio as they participate in television shows The Bat-chelor, Rottingfoot’s Got Talent and My Witchin’ Rules together with host Max Venomfiend (John Cooper) and celebrity werewolf, Jeremy Pawspit (Ryan Tanner).
Which-Craft? has a contemporary storyline that is relatable to a multigenerational audience. While it has the potential to slip into high school musical territory the cast ensure that it doesn’t. If the Adelaide Fringe has an award for best cast ensemble, Cook, Skuse, Noble, Cooper and Tanner certainly deserve it. Individually their talents are indubitable, together they are be-witch-ingly magical (see what I did there). For an hour the quintet sang, danced and got up to all sorts of hijinks. The set was simple, the script was pun-tastic and overall the production was delightfully entertaining.
Which-Craft? is a humorous take on an all too common societal problem. Although the path to resolution by the witches is entirely unrealistic, this is what makes it an amusing escapist experience, something everyone can use every now and again.
Fringe Review By Anita Kertes
For tickets, show dates and times for Which-Craft? head to Fringe-Tix.