NEWPORT-BORN actor Michael Sheen will be arriving in Gwent to film a BBC programme for the 175th anniversary of the Chartist march, it has been confirmed.

The hour-long programme, which is due to be aired next year, will follow Mr Sheen along the route of the Chartist march to Newport in 1839, which ended in the Chartist Uprising of 1839, in which 22 protestors died.

The programme is one of two history documentaries being made in Gwent this autumn to commemorate the anniversary of the rising which saw protestors march to the Westgate Hotel on November 4.

The charter they backed called for a vote for every man twenty one years of age, of sound mind, and not undergoing punishment for crime, the ballot —to protect the elector in the exercise of his vote, no property qualification for members of Parliament, payment of MPs, equal constituencies securing the same amount of representation for the same number of electors, and annual Parliaments.

In June 1839 a petition, signed by 1.3 million working people, had been presented to the House of Commons, but MPs voted, by a large majority, not to hear the petitioners.

On November 4, 1839, John Frost led between 1,000 and 5,000 Chartists with the intent of freeing fellow Chartists from the Westgate Hotel where they had been taken prisoner. The confrontation ended in violence and the 22 deaths.

In the aftermath 200 or more Chartists were arrested for being involved and twenty-one were charged with high treason. All three main leaders of the march, John Frost, Zephaniah Williams, and William Jones, were found guilty on the charge of high treason and were sentenced to be hanged, drawn and quartered at the Shire Hall in Monmouth.

After a nationwide petitioning campaign and direct lobbying of the Home Secretary by the Lord Chief Justice, Viscount Melbourne, the government eventually commuted the sentences of each to transportation for life.

Hollywood star Sheen will be visiting places the Chartists walked through on their route, including Tredegar, Ebbw Vale and Blaina.

To confirm the news, a BBC Wales spokesperson said: “There is a film which has been commissioned about the Chartists which will be filming in the Newport area.

“Michael Sheen is around in the next few weeks and filming will start shortly.”

Historian Les James, who has run the Chartism magazine for seven years, has been working with producers at the BBC to provide historical advice for the programme.

Mr James said the Frost/Nixon star will be starting in the Heads of the Valleys and plans to talk to people along the route to find out about life in South Wales today.

Mr James said: “He wants to get the public on his side and wants reaction from people.

“He will be talking to people on his route as he’s interested in knowing how people in the valleys are dealing with the economic situation today.

“The Chartist movement is about how people reacted when they had problems in the 1830s, so it’s about looking at comparisons to now.”

S4C are also producing a separate historical documentary about the rising which is due to be aired in November.

A spokeswoman for BBC Wales said they could not confirm the exact dates Mr Sheen would be in Gwent but will do so in due course.

Mr James, a former lecturer in history at the University of Wales, Newport, said there is a hope Mr Sheen will be in Newport for the South Wales Chartist convention in November.