The first First Lady to play more than a supporting role

Mrs Roosevelt Flies to London (Assembly Hall) Intriguing lesson in history ★★★✩✩

WITH Donald Trump’s every outlandish statement edging Hillary Clinton closer to becoming the first female US President, this intriguing one-woman show about an equally formidable former First Lady reminds us that American politics have never been short of strong women.

Yet even Hillary, for all her political nous, would struggle to match the endeavour, energy and commitment to equality and human rights so resolutely pursued by Eleanor Roosevelt, shown here in this touching and informative bio-play written and performed by Alison Skilbeck. Dubbed ‘the gab’ or ‘the mouth’ by her enemies, Franklin D Roosevelt’s wife was never one to sit still and take a back seat in political affairs – so much so that the Ku Klux Klan put a price on her head and her FBI file could have choked a horse.

Skilbeck, given special permission from the Roosevelt estate to use Eleanor’s writings, captures her spirit without feeling the need to revert to mere impersonation.

The show opens in 1962, with the Cuban Missile crisis coming to a head, and Eleanor dying, and wondering if the world has gone to hell in a handcart. But it is events 20 years earlier, when she paid a morale-boosting visit to wartime London as her husband’s ambassador, that provide the gateway into this engaging voyage round her life and times.

Her personal life is also put under the microscope, from her schooldays in Wimbledon to FDR’s infidelity and her dutiful role in their marriage, ‘a partnership but apart’. This pared-down production and history lesson has much to recommend it.

Aug 13-14, 16-29