A Force To Be Reckoned With, by Amanda Whittington, to be performed at Oxton Village Hall

Pioneering women in the British police are celebrated in a new play to be performed at Oxton.

A Force To Be Reckoned With, by Amanda Whittington, is described as more Heartbeat than Happy Valley and is told using a musical score and fast-paced script.

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, however, is very different. Stuck at the station, she soon finds her main jobs are typing and making brews.

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.

Playwright Amanda Whittington said: "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."

A Force To Be Reckoned With is performed by Mikron Theatre, which has been touring for more than 50 years.

Its cast is Eddie Ahrens, Harvey Badger, Hannah Baker and Rachel Hammond.

It will be staged at Oxton Village Hall on Tuesday (June 13) at 7pm.

Tickets costing £15 (£13 concessions) are available from the village hall website.