THAT'S MIKRON THEATRE

A Force To Be Reckoned With by Amanda Whittington – On Tour – Mikron Theatre

I have always rated Amanda Whittington an excellent writer playwright. Her subjects are so diverse from her Ladies Day Trilogy, Be My Baby, Kiss Me Quick Step to the serious and gripping  The Thrill of Love about Ruth Ellis the last woman to be hanged in Britain and sometimes I feel she does not get the kudos she deserves.

This time with her latest play ‘A Force to be Reckoned With’ Whittington draws on reports, archive material and a 30’s newspaper cutting that was headlined Hefty Girls Wanted for Police Force. In it, recruits were asked to have ‘brains, plus a good physique and be ‘fairly good looking’

Billed as ‘more Hearbeat than Happy Valley’ a Force to be Reckoned With captures the changes in the womens role in the police force. From 1883 when women were used as matrons by the police  we learn about their role which changed especially in 1949 when Elizabeth Bather became the first female Superintendent of the Met making in roads for Alison Halford to be the first woman Assistant Chief Constable in 1983 followed in 1995 when Pauline Clare became first female Chief Constable.

But back in the 50’s life was very different for the police women. Equipped with a  handbag, whistle and a key to the police box these women were tasked with helping to break the glass ceiling without a truncheon and they could wear makeup at long last.

Whittington’s work catapults us back into the fifties. We meet PC Irish Armstrong, (Hannah Baker) fresh from training school and working exactly to be the book and what she has learned on her course.  Baker resembles a Joyce Grenfell character and her strict girls boarding school characterization is perfection and lifts the show when it starts to flag. She meets Ruby (Rachel Hammond) a feisty, gutsy salt-of-the-earth Yorkshire girl  and eventually although like chalk and cheese they form a bond.

The local sergeant (Harvey Badger) is rather drab and sees women in the police still as tea-brewers dealing with women and children – yet purporting to be a family man he’s having an affair with Ruby whilst Eddie Ahrens doubles playing the constable and a flamboyant but rather dodgy clairvoyant who is just becoming as chauvinistic as his sergeant. Both actors seem to battle with roles that have little substance and although talented need more material to step up to the rather wonderful plate of Baker and Hammond.

All four though are excellent actor/musicians singing and move their way through a selection of diverse numbers using various instruments .

However what starts off as a show full of promise soon filters into a mundane interlude with little substance. There are times when one feels that certain scenes have been put there for padding and are inconsequential  – such as the Police charity concert.

Director Gitika Buttoo’s production is slick and seamless and incorporates some excellent set ideas whilst Whittington and Composer and Co-Lyricist Greg Last have composed some  great numbers that move the production along beautifully.

Mikron Theatre Company are 51 years old and stage their shows where ever they can to gather together an audience from fish restaurants, village halls, dry docks, lifeboat stations, pubs, in tents, under bridges and in fact anywhere. They tour in their narrow-boat in the summer and by road in the autumn and spring reaching spots that other touring companies cannot. They virtually deliver professional theatre to people’s doorsteps in a relaxed environment.

They nature new talent, tell stories about uniquely British things and produce plays with a social conscience.  If you’ve never seen Mikron then its time you did they are touring throughout the summer and autumn with ‘A Force to be Reckoned With’ and Twitchers about birds, birders and the RSPB.

Visit https://www.mikron.org.uk/ to find out where they are this summer and which plays are being performed. You’ll be glad you did.

Liz Coggins is a member of the Critics Circle