The time a film star was burnt at the stake as a witch

The baying crowd roared as the immaculately dressed, handsome man pleaded for his life.

A stone-faced woman held a torch against the jumble of paper and wood beneath that handsome man’s feet and his screams became ever louder and more piercing.

The flames caught and licked up the man’s body until the screams stopped and silence spread the crowd.

The handsome man was Reggie Mason. He was an up-and-coming film star in the nascent British film industry, and in 1922 the villagers of Bunbrington in Sussex burnt him at the stake for being a witch.

“Bunbrington was an extremely superstitious place in 1922,” said Professor Mark Norman, noted film historian.

In January, a travelling cinema arrived in the village and began to screen Mason’s hit silent comedy Blimey, What a Palaver.

“Well, seeing this giant handsome man magically capering across a screen against the wall of the village pub, the villagers naturally believed that they’d borne witness to witchcraft.”

Terrified and angry, the villagers formed a mob and ran the travelling cinema out of town with pitchforks and torches.

If not for a dreadful coincidence, there would have been no greater consequence for the unfortunate Mr Mason.

“Reggie was heading off to the coast with an attractive companion when he decided to stop off for cigarettes at a little shop.

“What he didn’t realise was that the shop was in the village of Bunbrington.

Ironically, it wasn’t the shopkeeper who recognised Reggie.

“No, he served Reggie and they exchanged pleasantries. It was as he left the shop that old Mrs Alfree who saw him.”

The old woman let out the terrible shriek – ‘WITCH!’

“Reggie didn’t think much of it and was walking across to his car when Mr Davies the Greengrocer tackled him to the floor. They struggled, but the Greengrocer was really quite burly and subdued him but beating his head against the ground.”

When Reggie came to later he was tied to a stake and a woman, who we believe was Mrs Davies, informed him that they had seen evidence of his witchery and he was to burn to death as punishment.

In the coming days authorities tracked down Reggie’s car to Bunbrington. The locals confessed that they’d burnt him at the stake for a witch.

The police explained that witchcraft didn’t exist and cinema was a new form of entertainment sweeping the world.

“Well, naturally, the villagers were terribly embarrassed but the police agreed the whole thing had been a terrible misunderstanding and agreed not to take the matter further,” chuckled Professor Norman.

Reggie Mason remains the only film star to be burnt at the stake after a film was mistaken for witchcraft and, despite the villagers of Bunbrington recognising that witchcraft wasn’t real there has never been a cinema built there.

Although in the eighties, several villagers bought VCRs and, it is said, one of them now even has a DVD player.