New Hardy Players’s Six Men of Dorset, Dorchester

History and theatre collided in a spectacular way in Dorchester this year. A one-hundred-year-old play was performed over two significant locations: the venue for the original performance and the courtroom where the real trial of the Tolpuddle Martyrs took place.

Following six sell-out performances in June, and an appearance at the Tolpuddle Festival, ‘Six Men of Dorset’ was performed three more times in Dorchester to a captivated audience.

Last performed almost 100 years ago, the play charts the struggles of six Dorset farm labourers to earn a living wage, and how they faced the full wrath and power of the British establishment.

The New Hardy Players performed the first part of the story in the Corn Exchange (the venue for the original 1934 production), and then led the audience up High West Street to the Historic Courtroom in the Shire Hall Museum, where the infamous trial took place.

It featured traditional hymns and folk songs, live music and specially filmed sequences. This was the New Hardy Players’ most ambitious production to date.

‘Six Men of Dorset’ is a co-production with Dorchester Arts and Shire Hall Museum