A VACANCY HAS ARISEN
Information
- Dates
- 19th November 2025 - 22nd November 2025
Book Tickets
01253 203563 Book Online
A Vacancy has Arisen…..for the position of ‘Judge of Conscience’ for the Northwest. This post has been held for the past sixty-five years by the present Judge who is due for retirement. Due to the overwhelming interest in this post, a group overview is scheduled where the retiring Judge will explain what the job entails. To illustrate this further, he takes the prospective applicants (the audience) through three scenarios he has had to preside over.
Set in the village of Lyndendale in the early 1960s, “A Vacancy has Arisen” takes a retrospective view of some of the characters residing there. Centred around the Village Hall, it appears to tell the tale of a gathering of ordinary village folk. They are plunged into the preparations for a surprise party for Mildred Phillips. She is returning to her roots after living in Italy for forty-three years.
Although her return is met with nostalgic excitement from some older residents, it also disturbs a hornet’s nest of unwelcome memories. Unwittingly, Milly unlocks cupboards where skeletons emerge, leaving certain conscience-stricken characters on the horns of a dilemma.
With an air of surrealism, this is a serious play, set in the 1960’s, tracing a step back in time to the Great War, with a further storyline in the 1920’s. The pivotal character, the ‘Judge of Conscience’, takes the audience through three scenarios, addressing lost opportunities, guilt, regret, coercive control, indecision and the cognitive impairment of dementia.