A THEATRE company celebrating a decade of entertaining is making a return to Weymouth for the final leg of a 21 date tour.

Osmington-based AsOne Theatre Company has taken World War One play Passion across southern counties and finishes its tour at Weymouth Pavilion on Friday, November 21.

Described by Echo reviewer Marion Cox as a play which ‘pulls no punches’, Passion interweaves five stories about how the Great War and more recent conflicts affected families.

The play has been created using real testimony from people who’ve fought in Afghanistan, who’ve waved their child off to fight and those who’ve discovered a WW1 relative’s diary.

Theatregoers who see the play on its final night will be helping to raise money for the Royal British Legion and the John Thornton Young Achievers’ Trust.

Passion – Line of Departure by Stephanie Dale premiered in Dorchester on October 8.

Artistic Director Jane McKell said: “We are incredibly lucky for our tenth year to have secured the best creative team. The cast and crew are the best I could have wished for.

“However it is the remarkable ‘gold-dust’ stories we recorded in lounges and conservatories in Dorchester, Bournemouth, Bath, Boscombe, Weymouth and Portland that have been the joy.

“These have come to be interwoven by Stephanie Dale along with some evocative new and arranged music by Dorset’s talented Tim Laycock.”

Over its ten years, AsOne has been recognised as a company of excellence from organisations including Dorset Business, Arts Council of England, Heritage Lottery Trust and West Dorset District Council.

Among its commissions have been a SureStart-funded play called Hey Baby – the story of five Portland parents’ journey into parenthood alongside a parallel project devised for schools with real teenage mums telling their stories.

She Opened the Door was commissioned for Dorchester’s International Thomas Hardy Society Festival in 2010 – it told the story of the women surrounding Thomas Hardy at the height of his fame.

The Cabinet Maker’s Daughter toured nine counties in 2011/12 telling the 19th century story of Mary Anning, the Lyme Regis-born palaeontologist and fossil expert.

In its second year AsOne had two recent graduates of its AsCend Internship Award awarded a place in mentorship on Passion.

Actor Ieuan Jeffcott plays the central character and Georgia Rily, who enjoyed a month’s training with West End stage manager Marina Kilby, works on the stage.

Jane said: “It was with huge pride that we announced one of our biggest projects to commemorate and mark the start of the Great War and the withdrawal of our troops from Afghanistan.”

To book tickets call 01305 783225 or go to weymouthpavilion.com