Review Round-up: John Proctor is the Villain in London – What the critics are saying

"The Crucible seen through the eyes of #MeToo-era schoolgirls"

"Arthur Miller’s seminal drama comes under scrutiny in this blazingly intelligent play by Kimberly Belflower at London’s Royal Court Theatre"

"... what a joyous, blazingly intelligent play this is: at once a restless interrogation of the role of art in defining and expressing who we are; a compassionate, funny portrayal of what it means to be a teenage girl; and a furious appraisal of the way power games repeat across generations. It’s staged with irrepressible energy by Danya Taymor and her terrific young cast."

"... the play is in constant, witty conversation with its place in the dramatic canon, and with the role of inherited narrative in framing opinion and defining character"

"What really makes the play is its vivid and touching depiction of young women trying to navigate their way to adulthood against this roiling backdrop. They’re played with great affection and aching authenticity here."

"Finally, they dance with wild, primal abandon — just as those Crucible girls did so transgressively in the woods. It’s a cathartic, defiant, exhilarating ending"

"... the themes of Kimberly Belflower’s dazzling play are universal."

"Belflower’s skill in writing this exuberant, perceptive and absolutely essential play is that she has a lot of cakes and eats them."

"It is Shelby’s return to school, after a mysterious three-month absence, that acts as an incendiary device, blowing up all the women’s certainties and forcing them to reassess what they know, who they can trust. As in The Crucible, it becomes a question of who is to be listened to, who has the right to have their word believed."

"Beautifully acted and directed with deep care by director Danya Taymore, it’s a witty and convincing picture of teenage girlhood, its brightness, hopes and fears."

"This is art that helps us to understand life, a tribute to literature as a map for comprehension, and to dance for expressing all the things that words cannot."

"The Lorde-loving, #MeToo-interrogating high school-set Broadway smash is a total blast"

"... what Belflower does do brilliantly is nail the intersection between the relatively brief apex of the #MeToo movement and a generation of smart, naive school girls who would have been the right age to absorb its rhetoric at the precise moment they’re discovering what it was a reaction to. Plus, it has a banging soundtrack"

"Danya Taymor’s production – which transfers recast from a smash Broadway run – is an absolute blast, the many serious issues raised all of a piece with its breathless ebullience and Belflower’s endlessly witty text."

"... it’s a wholehearted celebration of teen girl dorkiness and a rebuttal to the idea their lives should be viewed through a sexual lens, even in sympathy."

"The young cast is excellent. It’s a bit surreal that Soverall has similar looks and virtually the same name as the show’s Broadway star Sadie Sink, but she is great as Shelby, smouldering and livewire but with a sweetly unreconstructed nerd edge."

"A few judicious chart bangers and some fancy light and projection tricks give a bit of pop to the naturalist classroom staging. But it’s the sheer elan Taymor exacts from her cast that’s the real special effect here."

"Fantastically cathartic #MeToo-era riff on Arthur Miller’s The Crucible"

"Kimberly Belflower’s acclaimed play is brought to London’s Royal Court Theatre with rousing, timely results"

"Kimberly Belflower’s hit Broadway play John Proctor is the Villain (getting its UK premiere at the Royal Court) is a fantastically cathartic riff on Arthur Miller’s witch-trial play The Crucible"

"Belflower skilfully draws the tight boundary lines of her setting"

"What makes Belflower’s play so persuasive is the way that – like The Crucible – it shows how quickly new ideas can contaminate a small, contained environment, spreading like penicillin spores on white bread. And this town doesn’t want to take its medicine."

"Staged differently, this play is a tragedy, where idealistic, intellectually curious girls are stomped down on... But that wouldn’t be half as much fun as Danya Taymor’s breezy, joyful production, made with teasing love for this awkward crew of friends."

"Sadie Soverall is as caustic and lethal as an illicit swig of antifreeze at a church social"

"Theatre’s detractors like to complain that the stage isn’t topical enough... But if you want to really understand the millions of small, hidden dramas that erupted in the wake of #MeToo, plays like this one are the way to do it."

"Terrifically provocative"

"This riposte to Arthur Miller’s The Crucible deftly examines the way women and girls are manipulated and gaslit"

"Though schematic, Kimberley Belflower’s Broadway hit, a punchy riposte to Arthur Miller’s The Crucible, is a terrific piece of provocative entertainment."

"It has five rare foreground roles for young women, four of them strong: in Danya Taymor’s British premiere, Sadie Soverall and Miya James give standout performances."

"This is a thrilling addition to the 70th anniversary season of the English Stage Company at the Royal Court"

"... the characters are given vivid life by Taymor’s young cast, individually and collectively, as they test the boundaries of friendship and sexual attraction on the verge of adulthood."

"Soverall was magnificent in the Donmar’s Cherry Orchard in 2024 and she lights up the stage here."

"Though the play is mechanical in the way it works through #MeToo issues, with some scenes straining credibility, Belflower is acute on the way women and girls are manipulated and gaslit. And on victim-blaming and the excuses people make for predators."

"... you’ve got to love a play that includes a primal scream session brought on by the utterance of the word “penis”"

"A brilliant British cast makes this modern riff on The Crucible a must-see"

"Tony-nominated John Proctor is the Villain contemplates Arthur Miller’s totemic drama through the lens of the MeToo movement"

"A Tony-nominated hit on Broadway, this smart, slow-burning drama judiciously receives its UK premiere at the Royal Court with a gifted young British cast."

"You can intuit almost from the start how this play will develop, but it’s still a shock when the big reveal lands. By this point Belflower has the audience sold on the inner lives of these not-quite women as they navigate the threshold of adulthood"

"The performances are glorious, too: Miya James is both unshowy and mesmeric as Raelynn; Saltburn’s Sadie Soverall is horribly compelling as the wild and glowering Shelby."

"The play feels a little thin, too. It relies on an emotional charge rather than a thorny argument."

"But it nails absolutely the timeless fury of female adolescence. Why do the girls dance, asks Mr Smith early on, referring to The Crucible’s Abigail Williams, whose nighttime catharsis sees her accused of witchcraft? This play emphatically delivers the answer."

"Arthur Miller for the MeToo era"

"Kimberly Belflower’s Tony award-winning Broadway play about students reading The Crucible and sexual politics features exhilarating performances"

"It’s the buzziest show in town... but is Kimberly Belflower’s Tony award-winning Broadway play about schoolgirls studying The Crucible in a backwoods Georgia town really a modern American classic?"

"There’s certainly plenty to savour in Danya Taymor’s high-energy production, recast for London audiences... At its sharpest, the dialogue generates waves of laughter too."

"... John Proctor Is the Villain is a study of sexual politics and victimhood. Yet where Mamet caught people off-balance... Belflower can’t quite resist forcing home her message in the closing scenes."

"There are some exhilarating performances here."

"Belflower’s dialogue slips easily back and forth between teen anguish, dry humour and pop culture geekery."

"A thought-provoking play risks turning into a pamphlet."

"Has a huge, pulsing heart"

"Broadway high-school hit reframing Miller’s The Crucible captures the thrill and fury of teenage femininity"

"Hot on the hormonally charged heels of Miriam Battye’s excellent The Virgins, another drama of teenage sexual politics and friendship arrives in London. Kimberly Belflower’s 2022 play, a hit on Broadway, is less savage and more soft-focus than Battye’s – and it’s also at pains to spell out its themes and subtext, sometimes to a declamatory, over-explicit fault. But, in a tenderly handled production by Danya Taymor, it has a huge, pulsing heart and captures something of the thrilling, almost unbearable intensity of adolescent girlhood, building to a wildly emotional conclusion of mingled defiance, joy, rage and hope."