Mrs Roosevelt Flies To London

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'.

Granted special permission to use Eleanor's writings, Alison Skilbeck's one-woman show explores the public and hidden life of one of the most extraordinary women of the 20th century, a woman beset by deep personal insecurities and tragedy, but one who never lost her passionate belief in the strength of the human spirit.