A POLICE BOX full of adventure is travelling not through time and space but along the riverbanks thanks to a touring theatre company.
Mikron Theatre is celebrating its 51st year on the road – well, waterways – with a new production, Amanda Whittington’s A Force to be Reckoned With.
It tells the story of the pioneering women of the British police force, back in the days when a police box was just that, and not Doctor Who’s gateway to universe.
With a handbag, whistle and a key to the Police Box, WPC Iris Armstrong is ready for whatever the mean streets of a 1950s market town throws at her.
Fresh from police training school, she prepares for her first day on the beat. The reality is very different.
Stuck at the station, she soon finds her main jobs are typing and making brews.
Meanwhile, Iris joins forces with fellow ‘girl in blue’ WPC Ruby Roberts. They’re an unlikely partnership.
A two-girl department, called to any case involving women and children, from troublesome teens to fraudulent fortune tellers. What starts as ‘women’s work’ soon becomes a specialist role. Iris finds she’s earning her place in a historic force to be reckoned with.
Along the way, she discovers the Edwardian volunteers who came before her, a lineage of Suffragettes-turned-moral enforcers and the secrets that the police box hides.
The fast-paced script is, we’re told, more Heartbeat than Happy Valley.
Playwright Amanda said: “I’m delighted to be back at Mikron in their 51st year with A Force to be Reckoned With.
“The play takes a light-hearted look at the lives of Women Police Constables in the 1950s, celebrating their spirit, optimism and heroic efforts to break the glass ceiling without a truncheon.”
The production’s cast of actor/musicians will feature Eddie Ahrens (Monopoly Lifesized, Selladoor/Gamepath Entertainment), Hannah Baker (The 39 Steps, OVO Theatre), Harvey Badger (Spring Awakening, Stratford Circus Arts Centre) and Rachel Hammond (The True Adventures of Marian and Marian Hood, Barn Theatre and Swallows and Amazons, York Theatre Royal).
A Force to be Reckoned With comes to Caversham Court Gardens on Saturday, July 1, from 1pm, and then at The Rowbarge in Station Road, Woolhampton, on Wednesday, July 26, at 7pm.
Both shows are on a pay-what-you-feel basis, and there is no need to book.
For details, visit: www.mikron.org.uk
