The Boat Factory

Belfast 1947. The sun shines down on a post-war world. A 16 year-old boy starts life as an apprentice at Harland & Wolff’s Titanic Shipyard. 1700 ships built between here and the Clyde, 67 different trades, 300 acres of land and 35,000 men employed at its height. Regarded as the biggest and best there is, if you can dream it they can build it. This is history – this is his story – this is The Boat Factory.

Dan Gordon’s play is an extraordinary evocation of a city in a century. The many voices of the script carry echoes of other places, other worlds, other epics, but return eventually to the home place and the amazing eloquence of ordinary people living lives of racy, bracing power and great delicacy of skill.

Actors Dan Gordon and Michael Condron conjure up a host of colourful characters from the glory days of Belfast’s shipbuilding era to construct a poignant, funny, and moving picture of boat-building, male friendship, hardship, humour and heroism.