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At long last! Curtain set to rise on a
By Ruth Hayes
There are only a few weeks to go until the curtain rises on the largest dramatic production to hit Dorchester in nine years. Spinning the Moon is the town’s record-breaking seventh community play (no other town worldwide has staged as many) following the hugely successful Drummer Hodge, which was performed in 2014. What makes this play even more special for everyone involved is that it was due to be performed in 2020, but was brought to a grinding halt three weeks before opening night by the first coronavirus lockdown.
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Spinning the Moon, which opens on Tuesday, April 4, is set around Wolfeton House near Dorchester at the end of the Wars of the Roses. Battle-scarred Lord Trenchard returns home, only to find that his lands have been mismanaged by his steward and the family faces ruin.
The steps taken to save the family finances affect everyone who lives on their land and as the play unfolds we see fortunes rise and fall as local society implodes.
Add into the mix some less than brotherly monks from Abbotsbury, along with a bunch of looking to improve their position by fair means or foul, a devious servant and a completely unexpected visitation from far-flung places and you have an utterly captivating play that blends history with fiction and tells its tale of poignancy and drama with power and humour.
Spinning the Moon has a cast of more than 90 actors of all ages, some veteran performers from the first community play
Entertaining Strangers, performed in 1985, and some who haven’t performed since their schooldays in the dim and distant past.
It is written by Stephanie Dale, who also wrote Dorchester’s fifth community play A Time to Keep, and directed by Peter Leslie Wild, who also directs The Archers and the Chester Mystery Plays. Peter is assisted by Penny Levick, who specialises in community theatre.
Playwright Stephanie said: “When we were shut down by the first lockdown we were all devastated and didn’t dare hope we would ever get the play to the stage but now, seeing it come together week by
