MATTHEW HAWKINS applauds a psychotherapist’s disection of William Blake
Girls in blue
SUSAN DARLINGTON is disappointed by a show that aims to highlight misogyny within the police but fails to arrest the audience's attention
(L to R) Eddie Ahrens, Rachel Hammond, Hannah Baker and Harvey Badger in A Force To Be Reckoned With
[Robling Photography] 
New releases from Christina Alden and Alex Patterson, Odette Michell, Clementine Lovell
JOHN GREEN is fascinated by a very readable account of Britain’s involvement in South America
Strip cartoons used to be the bread and butter of newspapers and they have been around for centuries. MICHAL BONCZA asks our own Paul Tanner about which bees are in his bonnet
GORDON PARSONS acknowledges the authority with which Sarah Kane’s theatrical justification for suicide has resonance today
RON JACOBS welcomes a timely homage to one of the IWW and CPUSA’s most effective orators
A Force to be Reckoned With: Wetherby Whaler, Guiseley
INTIMATE community shows about big subject matters are something in which Mikron specialises, having previously tackled the suffragette movement and the NHS. An exploration of pioneering women in the police should be an easy win, especially at a time the force is under increasing scrutiny about institutional misogyny.
It’s therefore disappointing to find that Amanda Whittington’s A Force to be Reckoned With fails to arrest the audience’s attention.
The four-handed play centres on WPC Iris Armstrong (Hannah Baker), an eager-to-please new 1950s recruit who can quote passages of the law verbatim. Her dreams of walking the beat are challenged by the reality of typing and making drinks for her two male colleagues (Eddie Ahrens and Harvey Badger), until she teams up with ambitious and no-nonsense WPC Ruby Roberts (Rachel Hammond).
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