Sunday 26 May, 3:00 – 5:00pm, £25, Students and NHS staff, £10

1731. In restless, pre-revolution France, Catherine Cadière is about to be made a saint. But when her brother arrives with a startling revelation, Catherine’s life is thrust into chaos and threatens to destroy everything she thought to be true. Brother Witch is the true, remarkable story of the trial of France’s last witch.

Catherine Cadière, a young woman from the south of France thought to be a saint, accused her confessor, Jean-Baptiste Girard, of seduction, heresy, abortion, and bewitchment. The resulting trial spreads from small town Toulon to the King’s Court in Versailles, developing from a local sex scandal to a fundamental challenge to religious authority, the power of the court and the will of the masses, and shoving the private lives of the Cadière family into the limelight.

Join us in the Monastic barn built for the abbess of Shaftesbury, for a reading of Lucy Hayes’ (Bitter Lemons, Bonsai Baby) brand new play and post-show discussion.