IT has been almost nine months in the making but now the wait is over.

This month Drummer Hodge, Dorchester’s sixth community play that has a cast of more than 100 players plus a massive backstage and musical team, will be performed at Thomas Hardye School over 11 nights.

The play, which is based on a Thomas Hardy poem about a Wessex lad who went to the Boer War and never came home, has been written by Rupert Creed and features a cast of more than 100 local people.

The main characters in the play include the Hodge family and their friends, but also the wealthy Pope family who ran the brewery and whose daughter decided to strike out and become more than ‘just’ a wife, mother and matriarch.

Playwright and director Rupert Creed said: “It is a story of the past that resonates today. It’s about Dorchester investing in a big war and sending its men off to fight, men who are not professional soldiers.

“Then there’s the truth about the war that comes to light and causes the community to question their level of investment in the war. It’s very contemporary in terms of what happened with the Iraq and Afghan wars.”

He added: “Then there’s the issue of the role of women which was gradually coming to the fore.” Rupert says the play will be ‘spectacular’, with a cast of more than 100 players and promenade performances so the audience will have action going on all around them.

“It is visually exciting with a brilliant set. It’s been a real delight to be involved with. Hard work at times, but the level of commitment over the month has been brilliant, as is the level of acting.

“Everyone taking part has really bought into the experience and it has really paid off.”

Music is an integral part of Drummer Hodge and musical director Tim Laycock, left, has made sure that the sounds are in keeping with the time and the mood as the costumes and language.

“The music is a lovely mix of sounds from that period because there was so much going on in Dorchester musically.

“There was the military side of things, with the war and the barracks in the town, and there was also the town band, which would have been made up of brass and reed instruments and would also have had a whacking big drum too.

“The other thing is to do with Thomas Hardy and the music he used to listen to, the folk music and country dance tunes. We have used tunes that the Hardy family liked and Rupert has included several of Hardy’s poems in the script that I have set to music.”

Tim is in charge of a band of 25 musicians, the biggest band he has ever had, some of whom double as actors.

They have been rehearsing in Dorchester old library in Colliton Park, alongside the costume crew and actors learning their lines.

“It has been so nice for everyone to see what everyone else is doing,” said Tim. “It has given the play an organic feel and it has been absolutely fantastic.”

Drummer Hodge is being performed at Thomas Hardye School from April 1 to 12. Tickets are £12 plus concessions and family rates available from the play office in the old library, Colliton Park, Dorchester or from dorchestercommunityplay .org.uk