Waterloo Road star heads to the New Vic!

A familiar face from television’s Waterloo Road is taking on a very different role at the New Vic as the story of the most famous witch hunt in British history heads to North Staffordshire.

The Dukes, Lancaster, is bringing Richard Shannon’s powerful Sabbat to the theatre-in-the-round from Tuesday 26 to Saturday 30 June.

Nisa Cole, who played schoolgirl Amy Porter in three series of Waterloo Road, appears as Jennet Device in the production which marks the 400th anniversary of the trials of the Pendle Witches and tells the human story behind the infamous episode of British history.

Good Friday 1612. High on a hill in the wild and lawless area of Pendle in Lancashire a secret meeting is held at Malkin Tower, the home of Elizabeth Southerns. Known to the neighbourhood as ‘Owd Demdike’, she has been committed for trial as a witch.

At Lancaster Assizes later that year, 10 of those present are sentenced to hang at Gallows Hill. Their crime is the bewitching to death by ‘devilish practices and hellish means’ of no fewer than 16 inhabitants of the Forest of Pendle.

Directed by Amy Leach, Nisa is joined onstage by Christine Mackie, who appeared in an episode of ITV1’s Downton Abbey last year, Hannah Emanuel and Robert Calvert.

Sabbat runs at the New Vic from Tuesday 26 to Saturday 30 June. Tickets, priced from £10.50 to £19.50, are available by telephoning the Box Office on 01782 717962 or online.