IT’S a brave man who flouts the gossips of Eastwick but that’s okay because Darryl Van Horne is not a man at all but a human incarnation of the Devil.

With the energy of a rutting stag, Marti Pellow enchants the New England township’s three most interesting women, who are as yet unaware of their combined powers.

This musical retelling of John Updike’s 1984 novel has little of the cruelness of the original, in which the friends jealously blight an innocent young woman with cancer, but instead focuses on the darkness that lurks inside us all.

Mostly though, it is a thoroughly entertaining show – with many more amusing moments than sad ones – and the characters who come to an unfortunate end are either so pantomime villain or have so little control over their own destiny that the sorrow their demise brings is only shortlived.

Former Wet Wet Wet lead singer Pellow is an intriguing choice for Van Horne, played in the 1987 movie by Jack Nicholson, and is more convincing when acting deranged and evil than cool and seductive.

Although some of his lines are hard to make out, his charisma is palpable, and the screaming Empire audience clearly found his devilish charms sizzling hot.

Eastwick itself is realised through a well thought out series of two dimensional houses, which lift up or slide aside between scenes.

The pillared town hall swings around to transform into Van Horne’s boudoir, all red velvet and satin cushions, and white picket fences and washing lines pull out to create a row of back gardens.

This is a very strong show, with memorable chorus numbers and robust performances by all the cast.

But the greatest praise must be reserved for the three witches themselves, who were as equally as laudable when portraying the bored, insecure women at the start of the musical as the feisty, scarlet-enrobed sorceresses they become.

The trio, played by Ria Jones, Rebecca Thornhill and Poppy Tierney, have a strong chemistry which makes their friendship compelling, and their combined voices are as bewitching as the spells they are capable of casting when working together.

Just as the three witches prove they are too strong for Darryl Van Horne, the three female leads outshine the man who plays him.

Witches of Eastwick is at the Empire Theatre until Saturday.