Angel Exit Theatre

Expect the unexpected in Angel Exit's latest original drama based on the life and times of Martha Brown, the last woman publicly hanged in Dorset.

1856. A tale of jealousy and passion. An ordinary woman and her ordinary husband, a hatchet grabbed in haste, a murder, a wrongly accused horse, a black silk dress, the hangman from London and the mob at the hang-fair who gawp in glee.

Presented in the company's rich visual style, blending storytelling and striking physicality, this show is spliced through with wicked humour, an original score and macabre songs as a grim chorus of hollow-eyed storytellers invite you into their mysterious world where reality and fantasy blur as the events of Martha's life are played out under the constant stare of the gallows above.

Standing close to the gallows, on that fateful day, was a young Thomas Hardy, who later recalled: “I remember what a fine figure she showed against the sky as she hung in the misty rain and how the tight black silk gown set off her shape as she wheeled half round and back.”

Recommended for ages 12 and over.