WHAT'S ON at WHITE BEAR THEATRE
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Mrs Roosevelt Flies to London
Written & Performed by Alison Skilbeck
Directed by Lucy Skilbeck
6th - 7th July 2025
In October 1942, Eleanor Roosevelt, wife of the President, takes a dangerous trip to wartime London, to visit US troops, and see how the British, most importantly the women, are coping.
In her last days, as the Cuban Missile Crisis pushes the world to the brink of final catastrophe, Eleanor relives her journey, from bomb-damaged Buckingham Palace to midnight factories, but also recalls her life, from unhappy child, to unconventional wife, to becoming, in President Truman's words 'First Lady of the World'.
Today, all she stood for is under attack throughout our dangerous world. Her voice of sanity and compassion echoes down more than 80 years as she tours Britain at the height of WWII.
Returning to The White Bear Theatre following her solo show “Alison Skilbeck’s Uncommon Ground” last year, Alison Skilbeck was nominated for a Best Female Performance Offie Award (Off West End Theatre Awards) for her performance as Mrs Roosevelt and granted special permission by the Roosevelt Estate to use Eleanor's writings. Her one-woman show explores the public, and hidden life of one of the most extraordinary women of the 20th century.
“A tour de force.” ***** British Theatre Guide
The White Bear Theatre presents a rare revival of
TO SEE OURSELVES
by E. M. Delafield
1st – 12th July 2025
E. M. Delafield, is now best known for the comic classic The Diary of a Provincial Lady, which has never been out of print since it was first published in 1931. She was also a successful playwright, with productions in the West End, on Broadway and on the radio.
To See Ourselves premiered at The Ambassadors Theatre in London in 1931 and at The Ethel Barrymore Theatre in New York in 1935.
Productions were seen around Britain and heard on the radio. Maybe it was because Elizabeth Monica Dashwood had to hide her gender behind initials and a pseudonym; maybe it was because Noël Coward’s Private Lives opened in London at the same time as To See Ourselves; whatever the reason, Delafield’s plays were eclipsed and are now forgotten. Yet, To See Ourselves is a lost theatrical gem, as witty, engaging and thought provoking as anything by Coward, and with a depth of feeling and an engagement with issues of love, relationships, gender and politics that are as pertinent today as they were in the nineteen thirties.
It is also very funny.
Happy Cannibals Presents
The Play's The Thing
16th - 19th July 2025
A rehearsal takes a dramatic turn. A friendship implodes in real time. A misunderstanding has catastrophic consequences.
Maisie has decided to stage a play about her friends. And it isn’t flattering. As accusations are hurled and tears are shed, our characters will take a trip down the rabbit hole as they endeavour to find an answer to the impossible question: can we find truth in the theatre? And if so, who has the right to tell it?
Presented by Happy Cannibals, THE PLAY’S THE THING is a story in three parts about representation, (mis)communication, art, and artifice. It’s a love letter to theatre, in all its messiness, contradiction, silliness, and joy.
JARMAN
Directed by Sarah-Louise Young.
23rd - 26th July 2025
"A mighty spirit is about to reawaken. Yours"
Derek Jarman: film-maker, painter, gardener at Prospect Cottage, activist, writer... his influence remains as strong as it was on the day AIDS killed him in 1994. But his story, one of the most extraordinary lives ever lived, has never been told. Until now.
This vibrant solo play by Mark Farrelly (Quentin Crisp: Naked Hope / Howerd's End) brings Derek back into being for a passionate, daring reminder of the courage it takes to truly live while you're alive. A journey from Dungeness to deepest, brightest Soho and into the heart of one of our most iconoclastic artists.
Jarman’s works include taboo-breaking films like Sebastiane, Jubilee and Caravaggio, pop videos for the Pet Shop Boys (It’s A Sin and Rent), his extraordinary borderless garden in Dungeness, his shocking last paintings, and his unforgettable final film Blue, consisting of a single continuous frame of blue and chronicling what it’s like to lose your sight…but never your artistic vision.
“I hope audiences will feel stirred into living more bravely, stop elaborately murdering time and grasp each precious moment”.
Short interview with London Theatre Scene about “Jarman”. Click to see interview
Coco The Time-Travelling Tart
(Work In Progress)
30th July - 1st August 2025
Join Coco The Time-Traveling Tart for an hour of outrageous humour, glamour and scandal.
The socialite sensation is here to take you on an experimental whirlwind romp through the ages in this unique comedy cocktail blending history, hilarity, and intrigue into an unforgettable theatrical experience.
Expect cheeky surprises, dramatic twists, and Coco’s irresistible charm as she faces plenty of stiff obstacles (ahem) along the way.
Can anyone stop her clip-clopping through time?
One thing’s for sure: history has never been this fun—or this fabulous!
Yes, No, Maybe
By Elisabetta Pancucci
5th - 9th August 2025
Four walls. A ceiling. A window.
What has filled this silent space? If the walls could speak, what truths would they share? Their bricks and mortar whispering the indelible memories of moments once lived. A captured echo of things past. Six souls. One room. Different times. A triptych of stories etched on the same canvas. ‘Yes’, ‘no’ and ‘maybe’. Three small words swirl like ghosts through the same room, asking who will hear.
Yes, No, Maybe is a haunting exploration of love, loss, connection and separation and questions how we must all tolerate the inevitability of just being human.
‘I’m trying not to be here. I’m trying to go through the mirror, like Alice did…’
Er.
20th - 26th August 2025
Jay and Tess are stuck in purgatory, waiting to be reborn. As they drift through the afterlife, deciding what they will become, they relive their past lives — tracing how a single house party brought them together, the paths they might have taken, and the choices that led to their deaths.
Transferring direct from Riverside Studios, and inspired by the central theme in Plato’s Myth of Er, Er interrogates reincarnation, karma, and the human craving for transcendence — even in a world of music, drugs, and chaos.
A bit Godot, a bit McPhereson, Er is as ambitious in its content as it is in form and style.
‘None of this is real.’
‘No, none of this actually happened.’
Praise for past work:
"**** A domestic sitcom from hell" — London Pub Theatres on Putrid Beauty (2023).
Polar Bears
by Mark Haddon
28th - 30th August
“Talking means nothing. Not until you’ve seen it. Not until you’ve been there.”
John has never met anyone like Kay. When the moon is in the right phase, she is magnetic and amazingly alive. But when the darkness closes in, she is lost to another world, a world in which John does not belong.
‘Polar Bears’ by award-winning ‘The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time’ author Mark Haddon puts on full display the human struggle on behalf of a partner, a brother, and a mother to love, support and live with someone suffering from a psychological condition. Haddon’s writing is intelligent and vivid, refusing to temper the bursts of brutality and tenderness displayed by those embroiled in mental instability.