Tuesday, 28th October – Saturday, 15th November 2025
The Problem with the Seventh Year
by Nicholas Pierpan
White Bear Theatre
The World Premiere
“You’ve got to throw every punch with ‘bad intentions.’ If you don’t, you’re better off becoming an educated gentleman and not a boxer. And don’t kid yourself: you can’t be both.”
A young man’s boxing career conflicts with his life as a medical student.
Working as a cut-man, the consequences of his double-life catch up with him.
The Problem with the Seventh Year is a bloody, unflinching drama about the fine line between being clever and being a coward.
Supported using public funding by the National Lottery through Arts Council England.
CAST
Man | James McGregor
CREATIVE
Director | Paul O’Mahoney
Set & Costume Design | Lu Herbert
Lighting Design | Will Hayman
Sound Design | Raffaela Pancucci
Producer | Sarah Roy
Nicholas Pierpan
Nicholas Pierpan is an award-winning playwright and screenwriter. The Problem with the Seventh Year won the Cameron Mackintosh Award for New Writing. Nick has won a Peggy Ramsay Award, and was shortlisted for the Yale Drama Prize. He won the 2013 Off West End Award for Most Promising Playwright and was nominated for an Evening Standard Award for his play You Can Still Make a Killing, directed by Matthew Dunster. He was selected for the BBC Drama Production Writers’ Scheme and won the Script Factory Serious Screenwriting Award. After a BBC Sparks Radio Residency, Nicholas’ radio plays have been broadcast on BBC3, BBC4 and BBC6. In 2017 he was named to the BBC’s New Talent Hotlist, created by BBC Director-General Tony Hall and actor Idris Elba, and in 2020/21 was a member of the Serial Eyes programme for television writers at the DFFB in Berlin.
