GALLOWS humour is a curious aspect of the human psyche – laughter is the best antidote to fear, probably. The laughs are dark and the subject matter even darker when Ha Hum Ah Theatre brings its new play, Making A Killing, on tour locally, with dates starting on 28th October at Taunton, and coming to Dorset with Artsreach on 11th and 14th November.

The play, which is on at Cornwall’s dramatic, open air Minack Theatre until 9th October, is a razor-sharp, dark comedy about justice, corruption – and the cost of survival in a Renaissance world which is both exotically distant and disturbingly like our own.

The ropes are ready, the crowd is waiting and the hangman has a new apprentice …

When Claus Kohler is apprenticed to Master Frantz Schmidt, Nuremberg’s seasoned executioner, the two men are thrown together in a world where duty, morality and power collide – every decision leaves a mark. These were dangerous times – as the gallows fill and suspicion takes root, the fates of the two men become dangerously entwined, until both must decide who they are, and which side of the rope they stand on.

This play is based on a true story, drawn from the diaries kept by Schmidt, who, from 1573 to 1617, was the executioner for the towns of Bamberg and Nuremberg. During that span, he personally executed more than 350 people while keeping a journal throughout his career.

Making a Killing is at Taunton Brewhouse on Tuesday 28th October, Bath Ustinov Studio from 30th October to 1st November, Queen’s Theatre, Barnstaple, on 4th and 5th November, and 11th November at the Exchange at Sturminster Newton and 14th at Royal Manor Theatre, Portland, both with Dorset’s rural touring charity, Artsreach.