LIFE in Dorchester more than 200 years ago will feature in the fifth Dorchester community play.

A cast of more than 100 is expected to come together for the production which focuses on life in the early 19th century.

Playwrights Stephanie Dale and David Edgar are currently putting the finishing touches to the first draft of the play, which community play organisers hope to receive shortly.

The pair were selected to write the production last year and have spent the last few months researching their chosen subject - life in the Dorchester of 1804.

After much deliberation the couple, who have lived together for six years but have never written a play together before, decided to write a play within a play.

"The central event is the performance of a play looking back 100 years to the burning of Mary Channing in Maumbury Rings in 1705, with the play itself set in 1804 and 1805, when invasion from France threatened."

He said the play will focus on life as the country prepared for war and how the inhabitants dealt with the threat.

"Threatened with invasion by Napoleon in the summer of 1804, the citizens of Dorchester decide to present a patriotic pageant about the town's past, to buoy up troop morale."

He said ultimately the production play was a love story and focuses on the two main characters but also includes a visit to Dorchester by George III who spent the summer in Weymouth.

"Set in a time of social poise and national danger, Dorchester's fifth community play moves from elegant mansions to rotting prisons, from smugglers' inns to crumbling cliff tops.

"Written for a cast of over 100 people, the play explores all the risks and opportunities of breaking free," he said.

Rowan Seymour, spokesman for the Dorchester Community Plays Association, said: "The first draft is in the post.

"Once it's with us we will look at it and send it back for a second draft."

She said the association was still applying for funding for the play and was waiting for a final decision from a major contributor.

"We would like to hold out for performing next autumn - the final play is due at the end of June - but if we can't manage that we have the rights to the play for four years."

The last Dorchester community play, Fire From Heaven, was performed in April 2001.