Jake Mace
Menstrual Rage Theatre will arrive at Dundee Fringe next week to bring an interrogation of 17th century witch trails to the fore in HELLCATS. The piece comes off an acclaimed run at Durham Fringe earlier this year, and adds to the company’s repertoire of creating woman-led theatre exploring a diverse range of themes and issues with distinct, engaging, and fun feminist flair.
We caught up with the North East based theatre company ahead of their arrival in Dundee for a pixelated pint, where we caught up on everything from the Newcastle Witch Trials, to rising online misogyny and Andrew Tate. Join us in the Binge Fringe pub for this natter.
You can catch HELLCATS from September 13th – 15th from 20:30 at Sweet @ Keiller Centre as part of Dundee Fringe. Tickets are available through the Dundee Fringe Box Office.
Hi team! Tell us about the inspiration behind HELLCATS and the journey you’ve been on with the show since.
I originally had the idea for HELLCATS in 2022, prior to working on our last show (The Taming of) The Shrew, after reading about the Pendle Witches in Where There’s Muck, There’s Bras by Kate Fox. I then went down a research rabbit hole and found that the Pendle Witches trial records are still available. The original idea for the play was going to be based on these records. This was then put on the backburner while we focused on The Shrew. When 2024 rolled around, we felt it was time to bring the witches back to life.
The show evolved as we began researching and we discovered the Newcastle Witch Trials, which became the main source of inspiration for HELLCATS, being from the Northeast of England it only felt right to explore what happened so close to home. A lot of what you see in the show is based in truth, whilst the characters are fictional the events that took place aren’t. We were blown away by the amazing reception we received at Durham Fringe Festival over the summer and we can’t wait to bring HELLCATS to Dundee!
So what made you want to tell this story at this particular moment in time?
As a feminist theatre company, we strive to tell stories that centre around women, and the persecution of women in the 17th century was definitely something that we wanted tackle. The parallels between then and now aren’t as far apart as you’d think particularly with the rise of misogynist influencers like Andrew Tate, the overturning of Roe v Wade in America, and the rise in femicide globally in the past two decades. We strive to empower women and infuriate our audiences with the truth. We’re called Menstrual Rage for a reason.
Then what are you hoping the audience might take away from HELLCATS?
We hope our audiences will walk away singing the rap that we perform in the last scene of the play! If that’s stuck in your heads, we’ll be happy!
On a deeper level, we hope we make you laugh, cry, cheer, heckle and everything in between. We want to make audiences listen and we’ve found that making them laugh is the best way to do that. If you’re not walking away thinking that women have had it rough, then we’ve done something wrong! We want to inspire change and start conversations. Without giving too much away, we really hope you don’t think that Witchfinder General Matty Hops was a good guy!
Now that we’re gearing up for Dundee Fringe next week, what are you most excited for?
We’re most excited to see what Scottish audiences are made of! We’ve developed a good audience in the Northeast of England, and we hope to gain a few new followers up in Dundee too!
Aside from this, we always love seeing what other shows are on offer. There are so many amazing performances that we wouldn’t get to see otherwise so we definitely want to see our fair share here!
Fitting with the themes of our magazine, if your show was an alcoholic beverage (think cocktails, shots, beers, be creative!) what would it be?
If HELLCATS was an alcoholic drink, it’d have to be a Bloody Mary (or a Bloody Margaret in our case). Those of you who come and see the show will see why.
Phoebe Bakker
