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James Pratt and John Smith were the last two men hanged in England for sodomy; they paid for their pleasures swinging on a rope on 27th November 1835. The play, in ballad form, follows the journey of James Pratt from his home in Deptford one hot August day, to the house in Blackfriars where he and Smith were caught in flagrante and arrested for buggery. Or were they? The trial was so hasty and the defence so botched that we can't know for certain. From there we go to Newgate, where Dickens visited the condemned cell, and thence to the scaffold, and an equally botched hanging by a drunk executioner. Public Hangman William Calcraft killed over 450 people in his long career, including 35 women.] A community theatre project involving the whole company.

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Author: Peter Scott-Presland