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Quentin Crisp: Naked Hope
Written and performed by Mark Farrelly
Directed by Linda Marlowe
10th - 11th November 2024
Mark Farrelly’s hugely acclaimed solo play has delighted audiences across the country, and now comes to the White Bear for an up close encounter with the original Englishman in New York. Naked Hope depicts the legendary Quentin Crisp at two distinct phases of his extraordinary life. Firstly in the late 1960s in his filthy Chelsea flat (“Don’t lose your nerve: after the first four years the dust won’t get any worse”). Here Quentin surveys a lifetime of degradation and rejection. Repeatedly beaten for being flamboyantly gay as early as the 1930s, but also ostracised simply for daring to live life on his own terms.
The second part of the play transitions the audience to New York in the 1990s. Here a much older Quentin, finally embraced by society, regales the audience with his sharply-observed, hard-earned philosophy on how to have a lifestyle: “Life will be more difficult if you try to become yourself. But avoiding this difficulty renders life meaningless. So discover who you are. And be it. Like mad!”.
Naked Hope is a glorious, uplifting celebration of a genuinely unique human being, and of the urgent necessity to be yourself.
Written by Brad Sutherland
5th - 16th November 2024
Edward and Henrietta Dunbar considered themselves the preeminent couple down at “the club,” but when Henrietta is diagnosed with a degenerative illness, she doesn’t trust The Great Edward Dunbar to stick around. Bitter and angry over her illness, Henrietta turns her distrust into resentment and begins to torment Edward. A sadistic game ensues.
Alison Skilbeck’s Uncommon Ground
Sunday 24 November
A play about six wildly different people, coping and connecting during one year on the Common, telling their unexpected tales of love, life, death, and downright dottiness, while a seventh character lurks mysteriously. Directed by Gareth Armstrong, with music by composer Simon Slater (Constellations) and lighting design by Mark Dymock (Once).
Written during Lockdown and partly inspired by glimpses of people Skilbeck saw on her daily allotted walk on Clapham Common, it is a response to the feeling of isolation during COVID, and the search for connectedness. It reflects on the human need for the solace of nature, for healing laughter and silliness, and for love in all its forms surviving.
Alison Skilbeck is the writer and performer of three other, five star critically acclaimed, solo plays, “Are There More of You?”, “Mrs Roosevelt Flies to London” for which she was nominated for an Offie Award for Best Actress, and “The Power Behind The Crone”. Alison Skilbeck is an Associate Teacher at RADA, specialising in directing Shakespeare, and serving on the Admissions Panel. Television credits include Sherlock Holmes, The Beiderbecke Affair, Soldier Soldier, New Tricks, Doctor Who, Lovejoy, Midsomer Murders, and Call The Midwife. She plays Lady Elton in Series 5 of The Crown. Films include 'Phantom of the Opera', ‘Holmes and Watson’, and 'Florence Foster Jenkins' with Meryl Streep. She plays Agatha Doyle in the cult podcast series Wooden Overcoats and was notable Polly Perks in The Archers until the character was killed off.
Nominated, Best Solo Show OffFest Awards 2023
“astonishing vocal and physical virtuosity” ***** Journalist & broadcaster Mark Lawson
“they are compassionately written and brought to life by a skilled veteran of stage and screen” **** The Scotsman
“She’s an excellent writer and actor” **** The Edinburgh Reporter
The Grey Zone
Written and Directed by Geoffrey Williams
24th & 25th November 2024
Primo Levi, one of the 20th Century’s preeminent thinkers, struggles to write one last story in his search for some final meaning, some sense that his work has contributed to tikkun olam, the bettering of the world.
To have hope, you must believe that a better world is possible. In moral grey zones, times and places of extremity where decisions relate to survival, people with hope are exceedingly rare. As a Holocaust survivor and someone who dedicated his life to bearing witness to what happened, this play celebrates Levi’s legacy of hope, of seeking understanding where it would be so easy to find condemnation and hatred.
The Grey Zone is a one-man adaption of Geoffrey Williams’ play Drowned or Saved? (5* - London Theatre Reviews; [a] poignant portrayal of Primo Levi – Everything Theatre), with Marco Gambino returning as Primo. Music (some of which was written in the camps) is a fundamental part of this new production, performed live by Chris Brody.
We are delighted to premier this new version as part of the Tsitsit Fringe festival, supporting new Jewish writing
Written by: Arthur I. Miller
19th - 30th November 2024
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A new play about Jung by Pulitzer Prize nominee Arthur I. Miller
In 1931 the brash and brilliant physicist Wolfgang Pauli approached the world-renowned analyst Carl Jung for help. Pauli’s neurosis had wreaked such havoc with his psyche that when Jung first saw him, he felt as if the “wind had blown over from the lunatic asylum”. In their discussions they struck sparks off each other and in the end not one but both of them were changed.
Synchronicity is about psychology, physics, alchemy and the extraordinary things that can happen when two brilliant minds meet. Thought provoking, sometimes deep, sometimes moving - it is about how a meeting of the minds can change the world.
Originally developed in collaboration with Break A Leg Productions.
Writer Arthur I. Miller’s 137: Jung, Pauli, and the Pursuit of a Scientific Obsession is the inspiration for Synchronicity. He is the author of Einstein, Picasso, nominated for the Pulitzer Prize; Empire of the Stars, shortlisted for the Aventis Prize; and The Artist in the Machine. www.arthurimiller.com
There is nothing special about this
Written by Edoardo Fainello
30th November - 1st December 2024
In a therapist’s office, Julia unravels her vision of life. Cynical, disillusioned, and alienated, she tears apart everything that is "politically correct" with a disturbingly destructive fury. As she pieces together the fragments of her delirium, Julia discovers her truth. She navigates life by manipulating reality, inevitably dragging those around her into the darker shades of human nature. Who is a narcissist? Can one become a narcissist? Are we inherently selfish, or do we cultivate narcissism as a means of survival? This play explores the self, obsession, and the fear of losing oneself. No one wants to be alone; everyone wants to feel special.
Written by Greg Wilkinson
3rd - 14th December 2024
Join Liz, in her last morning at number 10, on a tragic-comic exploration of the tensions in politics: between ambition and ability, vision and reality, going short and playing it long. Can a fighter ever quit?
We are very proud to announce that LONDON PUB THEATRES MAGAZINE is now an OFFIE AWARD WINNING publication
A ONEOFF Special Award has been awarded to London Pub Theatres Magazine and Editor Heather Jeffery for providing a vital forum for highlighting the excellent work that happens in rooms in pubs, with sensitive editing, and an acute sense of the importance of tiny fringe venues to the health and development of British Theatre