When the feeling's gone and you can't go on it's...

Tragedy to me has always involved strong feelings of catharsis with a climactic final scene featuring  a lot of death. Therefore the Salem witch trials are perfect for this. The only problem is witches seem a lot less fun, so now my childhood is ruined!

I knew Arthur Miller from Death Of A Salesman, which I studied for a long while in high school. It has a similar feel to The Crucible: A tragic play featuring a sympathetic yet weak (adulterous) protagonist, though The Crucible features the collapse of a whole city rather than a family unit.

There were a few too many characters for me to follow easily, and also more finger-pointing than several crime novels put together. Except it's a whodunnit where we already know that no-one diddit, so no-one wins either way. It'd almost be if Sherlock realised there'd been no crimes at all, and he'd just arrested a load of charity workers by mistake.

And what's more, Abigail, the character that seems most witch-esque, gets off scot-free! (Aside from a wee spot of madness) But then, when you look like Winona Ryder, it's quite easy to forget about a little thing like witchcr... wait she was only 12 at the time? John Proctor! You stay away from those kids!

Turns out their relationship never actually happened. Sorry John Proctor.

I'm sure Abigail would be happy to know that her efforts weren't all for nothing: she now has a metal band named after her. I've just had a listen to them, and I'm going to give them a D-. It'd be much better if there was a twee indie band called Rebecca Nurse.

She probably listened to this kind of music anyways.