Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *
The past is not only a foreign country, it is a circus that cannot be easily explained, in which the ringmasters were all of a certain class and nobody else could perform without their express permission, and even then you could not hope to be enlightened because the language used to convey each act was written so that only certain public figures had the means to understand it; and even then they could alter the meaning quickly if it meant keeping what they considered to be the clowns, the lower order, down.
The Witch Trials of the 16th and 17th Century were a low point in gender relations, even for the time, it was a sham, a travesty caused by a ruling class, instigated by a male population who could not abide the thought of intelligent women, women who understood nature and the power of environment and could help heal the sick by means that the church, that religion, could not comprehend.
A deception on the abuse of power, a charade that saw thousands accused and murdered by the offices of state, and quite often instigated by a person with a personal axe to grind, with a score to settle. It was this abuse, the setting of the scene in the 1590s in Scotland that witnessed the great fraud against women, and which sparked a chain of events that would see women in Britain, in Europe, and in the fledgling colonies of America, wrestle with the damnation they were bound to suffer, and probably die from.
In the first of a four part series of historical investigations by noted television historian, Lucy Worsley, The Witch Hunts centres on the very beginning of what is a shameful piece of British history, one that examines to a certain extent the moment in which the future King James I became the lead exponent of all things to do with witchcraft, a paranoia that would go unchecked for decades, and which even now has some living in fear at being accused, and some of the secrets that these once wise women held as they performed services such as early midwifery and that of a local doctor, a healer, the herbalist.
As with all the series that the noted historian has presented, Lucy Worsley Investigates: The Witch Hunts is one of accessibility, of delving into the subject with tremendous affection, but never once allowing her audience to feel as though that they are being condescended to. This appeal of being able to bring history to life is an art form in itself and gives even those with a scant regard or knowledge of the subject to become better informed that they might have believed.
If there is an issue with the single episode investigation, it is that it does not go far enough, the desire for more information, more insight and historical background pertaining to the whole history of the witch trails could have been an entire series in itself, and one that would have served an even greater purpose, a value that could have been enormously beneficial to many, had it been allowed to do so.
With three other investigations to come from the historian, the manner of examination is to be commended, the search for the reasons why Britain’s perhaps secret shame in its treatment of a certain class of woman in a period dogged by jealousy and religious bigotry is compelling and enthralling; but one that could have been so much more.
Ian D. Hall