DORSET’s county town has many things going for it, but theatrically it is a national record-breaker. There have been seven community plays and now Dorchester Community Plays Association is looking forward to an eighth. Meanwhile, there is a nostalgic weekend ahead, from 27th to 29th March, with a look back at the fifth community play, A Time to Keep.

Performed in 2007, this play by David Edgar and Stephanie Dale, who has written several of Dorchester’s community plays, was set against the backdrop of the threatened Napoleonic invasion of 1804. It occupied a historic and social space somewhere between Jane Austen and Charles Dickens, with its ambitious middle classes, garrison of eligible officers, and impoverished low-life. Driving the plot was an unlikely but passionate romance between a well-born but feisty young woman and the youngest son of a family of notorious smugglers.

There were more than 100 characters, from George III and his court to the criminal classes. The original production featured more than 130 actors and was directed by Jon Oram with music by Tim Laycock.

Remembering A Time to Keep will be at Dorset County Museum on Sunday 29th March, from 10.30am.

On the same weekend, DCPA welcomes the group’s honorary life president, playwright and community play veteran Jon Oram, and members of his theatre group Claque Theatre. There will be improv workshops and performances at the Youth Association Hall, with a performance on Friday 27th March at 7pm, workshops on Saturday 28th at 9.30am and 2pm and a second performance at 7pm.

From the first play, staged in 1985, the record-breaking seven plays are, in order, Entertaining Strangers, Under the Gods, Running Still, Fire from Heaven, A Time to Keep, Drummer Hodge and Spinning the Moon.

Now the ever-ambitious DCPA is looking forward to play number eight and the committee is anxious to hear what themes, ideas, stories or events local people would like to see in this next play. If you have any ideas, you can email hello.dcpa@nullgmail.com, or contact DCPA via social media or the website www.dorchestercommunityplay.co.uk or drop a good old fashioned letter to 3 Friar Waddon Cottages, Weymouth, DT3 4EP.