Somerville the Soldier: A Play

Alexander Somerville is a popular hero of the revolutionary 1830s, a trooper in the Scots Greys who made a public stand for human rights and suffered like a stoic the consequent brutal flogging. Donald Campbell’s unfashionably straightforward, tightly constructed play concerns the way in which a small group of backroom conspirators plan to use Somerville the Soldier and his charisma as the spearhead in an attempt to turn a single mass demonstration in support of the Tolpuddle Martyrs into a full-scale revolt against the government.