Toby Veck is the caretaker of a remote church in the rural British countryside. After bemoaning
his pitiful lot in life to anyone who will listen (which is seemingly no one), his daughter, Meg, arrives with a special surprise: a hot, home-cooked meal. The meal is meant to be a celebration of her recent engagement— an occurrence that is news to her father. Before Toby can get fully enraged at his young daughter’s seemingly impetuous decision, Richard, her fiancé, arrives expecting a celebration to be in order. Instead of congratulations, Richard is met by a fairly hostile Toby, who accuses him of not thinking this through. He points out that neither Richard (an aspiring philosopher) nor Meg (who has never worked) have jobs or money, and that encourages them to get their life on a positive path before committing to marriage and a family. Richard exits in a huff, and Meg leaves, heartbroken that her father won’t support her but determined to marry Richard.

With the kids gone, Toby again beseeches whoever will listen for strength. He is greeted with the sounds of the chimes, and a powerful voice… but it’s not the Voice of the Almighty. No! It is the goblins of the church, who have been listening to Toby, and they appear to him now as ghastly apparitions. While Toby is initially frightened by these creatures, he begins to engage with them and even learn what they know. Over the course of the play, they show Toby three futures: one in which Meg and Richard are struggling, another in which they marriage is nearly destroyed with Richard’s drinking and Meg’s despondency, and the final where Meg steps up to the side of a bridge, young son in-hand, prepared to kill herself. It is in this final future— during which Toby screams to his daughter but she cannot hear him— that Toby realizes that it is his disownment that lead to his daughter’s terrible fate, not her own impetuous choices. The futures dissolve into memory, and the goblins leave with a final wish for Toby: do right by yourself, do right by your daughter. Back in real time, Meg returns to try and make a final peace with her father, and he embraces her, full-heartedly accepting her for she is and imploring for her to do the same.