Titanic Work in Halifax

I am currently visiting Halifax, Nova Scotia, as part of a five-week tour of Canada and the USA, and doing a spot of research for my Titanic project whilst here. Halifax has a close connection with the story of Titanic as it was here that boats set out from to recover bodies of those lost and where many of them are buried. The sea and shipping are a huge part of what makes this place what it is, and I have spent much of the day in the excellent Museum of the Atlantic, which houses some amazing Titanic artifacts recovered from the sea, including a deckchair and part of the grand staircase. All the other artifacts I have seen before have been recovered from the wreck, whereas what is displayed here seems quite new, having only been in the sea for a matter of days. A cabinet for instance. There are also touching items connected with the recovery of the bodies, like a canvas bag with a number on it, to contain personal possessions found on each body. It is clearly a popular place to visit, and I am thrilled that all the children who are visiting while I am there are as intrigued and captivated by the Titanic story as I am. Tomorrow I shall be visiting the graveyard where about 130 of those who perrished are burried. It promises to be a moving experience.

Writing about "Titanic".. now and then

I have spent some time this summer working on Project Titanic, my play about ...Titanic. I have done most of the research I need to do, especially in the texts of the American and British hearings that were held shortly after the disaster. Part of the challenge has been to try to isolate exactly what story or stories I want to tell, because there are so many individual stories contained within the Titanic saga -from conception right through to today. The most intriguing thing I have found is that everyone who becomes involved in Titanic becomes part of its history. Titanic the ship may have sunk, but Titanic the legend -the idea, lives on. And it is this that makes Titanic truly unsinkable. Somehow this particular ship and its story caught people's imagination and continues to do so. Why? Well, that is really the question I pose in my play. It is the phenomonan of Titanic that I am concerned with rather than the historical, facts and events. These have been addressed admirably in so many other works, and I have read a great many of them. Ideally I think the only way one could do full justice to every story contained within the history of Titanic would be to have a monologue by each and every person who has in some or any way been connected with the ship. But this would run to thousands of people. One must make a choice. My play has one key figure (J. Bruce Ismay) who survived the disaster (or did he?) and a small number of characters who didn't, and whose lives have particularly intrigued me. People often ask where my interest in Titanic comes from. A very good question. I think it probably started when I saw "A Night to Remember" at a very early age and was transfixed. (I saw it again a couple of weeks ago and was still transfixed.)
It must have been just after seeing that film that I wrote the account of Titanic posted above. I was thrilled to discover it a few days ago in an old school book. I am intrigued by the inaccuracies, but the narrative and terse presentation of key facts is not bad for a 7-year old!

98th Annivesary of Titanic disaster, and project update

Today marks the 98th anniversary of the sinking of Titanic, so working on my labour of love (Project Titanic) has a special weight at this time. It's another two years before I plan to stage the play I am writing about Titanic, but I have been researching all aspects of the ship, the sinking, the people connected with it and the legacy of the whole disaster and started to set out the framework of the play. It started as being a one-man piece –with Bruce Ismay as the sole character. Then expanded to three, then to four characters, and now looks like ending up having five characters, one of whom I still have to determine the identity of. Apart from Ismay all the characters perished when the ship went down. The play will also include a sort of prequel that I am quite excited about ..this featuring Captain Smith and another famous captain from history!

So the business at the moment is jotting down ideas and trying out threads of storyline. The most important part of any playwriting is the construction, and the defining of the "shape" of the piece. This is progressing nicely, and I have a good idea now of what I want to say with my play. The rest is to follow.

Project Titanic -official birth!

Today it is exactly 100 years since the keel of Titanic was laid in Belfast -effectively the birth of that great ship. Three years later she was fully grown, and then so tragically lost. However, she wasn’t really lost, because almost every single fact  about the ship, its crew and passengers, its maiden voyage, its rediscovery by Dr. Ballard and its legend have been the subject of endless fascination. Books, films, articles, exhibitions all keep Titanic alive, even with the wreck itself slowly disintegrating beneath the sea. Ever since I saw A Night To Remember on television at the age of about 9 I have been drawn to the story of Titanic. It is one of the greatest true stories in history, comprising thousands of destinies and as many tales and legends. For the past few months I have been doing a lot of research, reading up in preparation for writing what I have temporarily called "Project Titanic" -a play about the legend of the ship. This is not going to be a huge, James Cameron type of thing, but storytelling on a very intimate human level, shared by one particular character connected with the ship.  This, for me, is a labour of love, and I do not have a deadline for completion or an immediate plan of production –at present I have nothing but the keel. "Project Titanic" has been born!