The Spooky Ship: Shipwrecked! is a co-production from Brunel’s SS Great Britain and Bristol Old Vic. Each show takes the form of an hour-long tour through the grand old vessel, with some ghoulish surprises around every corner. The 6.40 and 6.50 tours are suitable for those aged 8+, while the later shows are for those 12 and over. Last night there was a great buzz of excitement in the Harbourside Kitchen as we waited to board. Some punters had turned up in nautical costume; others were decked out in traditional Hallowe’en gear. Upon receiving our tickets, we discovered that some of us were privileged first class passengers, while others were not so lucky. The injustice inherent in a social class hierarchy is a theme that runs throughout the show.
As the tour gets under way a number of ghostly figures are encountered. Thanks to the efforts of the Bath Academy of Media Makeup, they all look decidedly dead, and there are some impressively gruesome scars and splashes of blood. But these are not generic spooks, but the spirits of real people who were on the Great Britain when she went aground in Ireland’s Dundrum Bay, in 1846. Each of them has a chilling story to tell. Though they look much like characters from Pirates Of The Caribbean, their tales are not fantastical, but are pieces of real 19th century social history.
For example, a young Irishman speaks of the potato famine ravaging his country, and he comments bitterly on the enormous difference in wealth between the first class passengers stranded on the ship, and the Irish peasantry on the nearby shore. Haunting the weather deck is a Jamaican lady’s maid, who tells of her ill-treatment at the hands of her employer, and who fondly recalls the warm weather of her homeland. Finally, in the dining salon we meet Captain James Hosken, the man responsible for the poor seamanship that led to the Dundrum Bay disaster.
Director and writer Stephanie Kempson has cleverly woven elements of the true history of that fateful voyage into this spooky experience. There are ‘jump out of your skin’ moments that bring shrieks of fear and laughter, but the emphasis is very much upon more serious story-telling. At times this becomes a little too didactic, and younger visitors might find some of it rather heavy-going. As there is a tour every ten minutes there is the danger of a traffic jam developing, necessitating quite a bit of standing around. However, The Spooky Ship: Shipwrecked! is an ingenious and informative show, and there is no denying that, on a dark Autumn night, the SS Great Britain has bags of spooky atmosphere. ★★★☆☆ Mike Whitton 1st November 2019
