THE untold story of the women behind the Tolpuddle Martyrs will be told to an audience in Langford Budville.

An acapella adaptation of ‘To Win The Day’ will be performed in St Peter’s Church by Time and Tide, a not-for-profit collective of like-minded folk musicians based in the Westcountry close to the scene of the initial actions of the folk-drama.

The five-strong cast of Linda Chiplen, Mary and Rod Harrington, Martin Stephen, and Sophie Wright will take to the stage at 7 pm on Sunday, June 29, with proceeds going to meet expenditure such as insurance premiums to keep the church open.

The play tells of a group of extraordinary ‘ordinary’ women whose menfolk were labelled both troublemakers and martyrs.

It is the story of their courage and loyalty in a society which was prejudiced against their class, religion, and their gender.

The performance is presented in the form of a song-cycle, drawing on songs and ballads collected from local singers in the first decade of the 20th century to tell the story.

Some songs are several hundred years old and have been copied or altered many times within the oral tradition itself and it is likely they were known - perhaps even sung - by the women the play is about.

The spoken words are often from contemporaneous sources such as letters, reports, newspapers, or recorded documents.

This production follows wives Betsy Loveless, Sarah Loveless, Dinniah Standfield, and Harriet Hamet, mother Catherine Brine, and daughter/sister Eliza Standfield, revealing their integrity and strength in the face of extraordinary circumstances they could not have envisaged.

All closely related and from a close-knit rural community, they were thrown into the national political arena by the actions of the aristocracy in response to their men’s belief in a fair deal for everybody.

Tickets at £10 can be booked by emailing [email protected].