ANGEL Exit Theatre presents dark and moving tragicomedy The Ballad of Martha Brown at The Haymarket next month.

This brand new show is about the last woman to be publicly hanged in Dorset, as witnessed by a young Thomas Hardy.

See it in the Wote Street theatre on Wednesday, June 11 at 7.30pm.

Set in 1856, The ballad of Martha Brown has been created by acclaimed physical theatre company Angel Exit Theatre.

This is a tale of jealousy and passion based on the true story of Martha Brown, who murdered her husband with an axe and then accused a horse of killing him.

Martha began life as a dairymaid in rural Dorset, a hard life of mud and toil, and after surviving her first husband and her two children, she gave up on the notion of happiness until she met her second husband John Brown.
He was twenty years her junior and theirs was a passionate relationship which descended into domestic violence and infidelity.

Angel Exit look at the circumstances that catapulted Martha Brown from being an insignificant milkmaid to an infamous murderess tried in Dorchester County Court and hanged by the infamous hangman William Calcraft in front of 3000 people.

Presented in the company's rich visual style, blending ensemble storytelling with striking physicality, this new show is spliced through with wicked humour, an original score, macabre songs and live music, 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.”

It's said that his vivid memory of watching Martha hang inspired him to write Tess of the D'Urbevilles.

The Ballad of Martha Brown is 90 minutes plus interval, and is most suitable for those aged 12 and over.

Tickets: £15, £10 concessions.

Box office: 01256 844244, anvilarts.org.uk.