The Guardian 8 February 2023

When you see the gang of teenagers who form a midnight coven in Maryam Hamidi’s punchy and poetic new play, you think of Shakespeare’s Macbeth, Des Dillon’s Six Black Candles and Arthur Miller’s The Crucible. Young and volatile, these girls believe they have access to dark spiritual forces – and, as they dance and chant, you hear echoes of the mystery, the prejudice, even some of the comedy of those witchy dramas.

Because of the transitional age of the girls, Moonset also recalls the menstrual themes of Angela Carter’s The Bloody Chamber and Kate Bush’s Strange Phenomena, carrying the suggestion that the monthly cycle is not just physical but supernatural. This is a play about intimacy, secrecy and esoteric female energy.

By Mark Fisher

MARK FISHER is a freelance theatre critic and feature writer based in Edinburgh and has written about theatre in Scotland since the late-1980s. He is a theatre critic for The Guardian, a former editor of The List magazine and a frequent contributor to the Scotsman and other publications. He is the co-editor of the play anthology Made in Scotland (1995), and the author of The Edinburgh Fringe Survival Guide (2012) and How to Write About Theatre (2015) – all Bloomsbury Methuen Drama. He is also the editor of The XTC Bumper Book of Fun for Boys and Girls and What Do You Call That Noise? An XTC Discovery Book (both Mark Fisher Ltd).