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Suranne's spellbinding witch hunt: The Doctor Foster star charts the dark path of history's witch trials - and discovers their sinister echoes today Suranne Jones's documentary focuses on women practising witchcraft today READ MORE: House of the Dragon's second season debuts with ongoing deadly power struggle - as warring factions target family in battle over the Iron Throne By Tricia Martin Published: 20:48, 24 June 2024 | Updated: 20:48, 24 June 2024 e-mail View comments She’s best known and loved as TV’s feisty cop Rachel Bailey and vengeful Doctor Foster. But in a gripping new two-part documentary Suranne Jones focuses on women with a different type of power – those tried as witches hundreds of years ago, and those actively practising witchcraft today. ‘For most people a witch is an old crone with a pointy hat and green skin, one eye up here, one down there,’ she says.

‘Popular culture has given us countless portrayals, from that fairytale crone to the modern magical teenager, but none get anywhere close to how dark the real story is.’ She begins her odyssey in Pendle, Lancashire, close to Oldham where she grew up. In 1612, ten people were executed there for the use of witchcraft, eight of them women.



‘It’s one of the most notorious executions for witchcraft in English history,’ says Suranne, 45. ‘Lancashire was known as the dark corner of England, where traitors and misfits ran away to. I like that I’m from the dark corner.

’ Historians describe .

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