In Whitby Harbour, in the summer of 1991, something extraordinary happened. A humble pleasure boat set sail for the Arctic, crewed by misfits, pensioners and the vicar for Egton and Grosmont.

This motley crew was assembled for a daring mission: to erect a plaque honouring the legendary Whitby whaler and explorer Captain William Scoresby Senior on a volcanic island hundreds of miles north of Iceland. The boat was illegal, the crew untrained and the plan... unhinged.

A joyful, (mostly) true story of British eccentricity and determination, Bea Roberts's play The Whitby Rebels premiered at the Stephen Joseph Theatre, Scarborough, in 2024, directed by Paul Robinson.



Bea Roberts is a writer from the West Country. Her other plays include And Then Come The Nightjars (joint winner of the inaugural Theatre503 Playwriting Award) and Ivy Tiller: Vicar's Daughter, Squirrel Killer (for the Royal Shakespeare Company).



'You can see why the true-life story of the Helga Maria put playwright Bea Roberts in mind of an Ealing comedy. It is a tale of British pluck, high-seas adventure and small-town amateurism as a group of misfits comes together to achieve the impossible'



'A crazy, absurdly heroic story, comparable to an Ealing comedy'