Bruce Ismay, the managing director of the White Star line who has survived the wreck of the company’s most famous liner, the Titanic by taking a place on the last lifeboat, is being haunted every night by the ghost of Thomas Andrews, the man who designed the ship and went down with it. Andrews acts as the guilty conscience of Ismay, occasionally becoming a member of either the US or UK enquiry into the disaster to explore whether Ismay had done the honourable thing in surviving.
This two-hander play consisted of a dialogue in which the actions of Ismay were interrogated and concepts of honour and duty dissected. The chief charges seemed to be that as managing director, Ismay was a member of the crew rather than a (non-paying) customer and therefore should have drowned like the captain did, that he owed a duty of care to his servants who drowned, and to the passengers who drowned. There was also consideration of whether he had pushed the captain to go too fast after being warned about icebergs, making Ismay responsible for the disaster.
But this isn’t much to base a dialogue on. This meant that some of the ideas were revisited and repeated, sometimes several times, so the play, which was already short, the first half lasting about 45 minutes and the second about 30, nevertheless seemed to drag on too long. Perhaps this was why I felt the performances were rather lacklustre: the actors seemed tired and the actor playing Ismay seemed to stumble over his lines on more than one occasion. There was warmish applause form the almost capacity audience at the end but it was not the rapturous ovation reported at other venues.
I suspect the play is aimed at Titanic buffs. I don’t think I am one of these although I have read about the disaster (most recently Beryl Bainbridge’s novel Every Man For Himself in which both Ismay and Andrews appear) and seen documentaries so I knew the basic facts of the case as outlined in the play. More dedicated fans of the sinking would presumably have found even less new material so it is difficult to see what they would have gained from this play.
This two-hander play consisted of a dialogue in which the actions of Ismay were interrogated and concepts of honour and duty dissected. The chief charges seemed to be that as managing director, Ismay was a member of the crew rather than a (non-paying) customer and therefore should have drowned like the captain did, that he owed a duty of care to his servants who drowned, and to the passengers who drowned. There was also consideration of whether he had pushed the captain to go too fast after being warned about icebergs, making Ismay responsible for the disaster.
But this isn’t much to base a dialogue on. This meant that some of the ideas were revisited and repeated, sometimes several times, so the play, which was already short, the first half lasting about 45 minutes and the second about 30, nevertheless seemed to drag on too long. Perhaps this was why I felt the performances were rather lacklustre: the actors seemed tired and the actor playing Ismay seemed to stumble over his lines on more than one occasion. There was warmish applause form the almost capacity audience at the end but it was not the rapturous ovation reported at other venues.
I suspect the play is aimed at Titanic buffs. I don’t think I am one of these although I have read about the disaster (most recently Beryl Bainbridge’s novel Every Man For Himself in which both Ismay and Andrews appear) and seen documentaries so I knew the basic facts of the case as outlined in the play. More dedicated fans of the sinking would presumably have found even less new material so it is difficult to see what they would have gained from this play.
I saw the play at the Grove Theatre in Eastbourne on 24th January 2025.
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