A NEW play will remember a forgotten daughter of the city – a political prisoner locked up on the flimsiest of evidence for plotting to kill the Prime Minister.

Alice Wheeldon was a conscientious objector who gained notoriety during the First World War when she was accused of obtaining poison with the aim of killing David Lloyd George. Some say she was framed; most agree that her imprisonment was a terrible injustice.

Angela Truby, whose play, Alice, will be performed by Derby-based Sustained Magic Theatre Company this month, admits: "There's no real evidence either way. We believe that she did procure the poison, but she said it was to kill guard dogs at the camps that were holding the conscientious objectors."

Alice ran a safe house for conscientious objectors, arranging for them to be smuggled out of the country.

The game was up in December, 1916, when a man purporting to be a conscientious objector arrived at her home in Pear Tree Road, Derby. In reality, he was Alex Gordon, a freelance spy working for MI5, and it is thought that he planted the idea of poisoning guard dogs into Alice's mind.

Angela says: "It was the word of the British establishment against the word of a woman from Derby and the British establishment won.

"By the end of January 1917, Alice, her two daughters and son-in-law had been arrested for trying to poison the Prime Minister. This is a Derby woman, a wife and mother and all of a sudden the entire world's press was focussed on her. It's unbelievable."

Alice served nine months of her sentence before being granted a pardon by the very man she was convicted of plotting to kill. Unfortunately, a series of hunger strikes had left her weakened and she succumbed to influenza in February 1919, aged 53, shortly after her release.

Angela was inspired to write about Alice following a performance with Sustained Magic at Derby Guildhall, which was once used for twice yearly assize courts.

"We ended up running around the Guildhall cellars, which is where the old cells were, and learned about Alice Wheeldon. We thought it was an amazing story and couldn't believe that nobody had told us about it before."

The play, which features four local actors, focuses on the relationship between Alice (played by Beki Mahon) and her defence lawyer, Saiyid Riza (Pardip Kumar). Ed Kennedy as General Sir Frederick Smith and Rhiannon Prytherch as daughter-in-law Winnie Mason complete the cast, while Matt Green directs.

"The local paper was very sniffy about the lawyer's ethnicity at a time when political correctness did not exist," says Angela. "The play is very political; I've not shied away from that but I've kept the story very human. To me there are so many resonances with the modern world. You think things have changed but in fact very little has."

WHAT: Sustained Magic – Alice

WHERE: Derby Theatre Studio

WHEN: Tuesday, April 12 to Saturday, April 16, 8pm

TICKETS: £10 (£8 concs, £7 NUS)

BOX OFFICE: 01332 255800