DISCOVER the hidden stories of Dorset’s LGBTQ+ explorers, writers and poets in an inspiring new play.

The play, Indecent Acts, is at Shire Hall Historic Courthouse Museum on Saturday, October 5

Playwright Roni Neale, 22, from Charlton Down, wanted to bring to life the hidden stories of the LGBTQ+ community in Dorset. Using first-hand reports from letters and diaries together with research from Dorset History Centre in Dorchester, she has created this brand-new play.

Through poignant and life-affirming monologues, the audience will encounter the voices of five historical characters, as they relate in their own words, the victories for the LGBTQ+ community in Dorset.

The play includes William Herbert Poole, who was briefly admitted to Herrison Hospital when it was a mental health facility, writers Valentine Ackland and Sylvia Townsend-Warner and the magistrate-turned-explorer William John Bankes, who was forced into exile following charges of ‘indecency’ with another man. Bankes continued to send treasures back to his home in Kingston Lacy. However, from Roni’s research it is suggested that Bankes might have used smuggling routes from France and some odd UK laws to avoid being arrested.

Roni said: “One of the laws from that time was that from sunrise to sunset on a Sunday you couldn’t be arrested, so he used to sneak back into the UK to see his house. There’s evidence of him writing to his brother after one visit and saying he couldn’t believe what he had done to the house! It’s a play about the little victories.”

Another monologue looks at the lesbian writer Radclyffe Hall from Bournemouth. In 1928, she wrote the novel The Well of Loneliness. Roni said: “She kicked off the idea in the social consciousness that women who dressed in a masculine way were lesbians. They banned the book as it had one line about kissing another woman. But the thing about banning books is it often makes them more popular. So again, it’s about the little wins and saying, ‘We are here, and you can’t get rid of us.’”

Roni’s love of theatre grew from her time with the local Dorchester Youth Theatre and The New Hardy Players, as well as many other productions. She studied Actor Training for Theatre and Media Performance at Weymouth College, before going on to work with the National Youth Theatre in the West End. She is currently touring the country with Birmingham Stage Company as technical assistant stage manager for David Walliams’ Billionaire Boy.

Indecent Acts is directed by Emily Wilkinson and its young cast draws on alumni of the Dorchester Youth Theatre. The performance is part of the new British Museum touring exhibition Desire, Love, Identity: Exploring LGBTQ histories which opened at Shire Hall Historic Courthouse Museum in Dorchester on September 21st and runs until November 17.

*Indecent Acts, Shire Hall Historic Courthouse Museum, Dorchester, Saturday, October 5, 7.30pm. Tickets are £10 and available from shirehalldorset.org