Ovation's Iceberg Right Ahead

5m, 4f

• Frederick Fleet - Lippy Liverpudlian, always ducking and diving, a look-out. Playing age: 26 (m)
• Reginald Lee - Slow witted, Southerner, sweet natured, a look-out. Playing age: 41 (m)
• Robert Hichens - Fiery Cornishman, quartermaster, fond of a drink. Playing age: 29 (m)
• Margaret (Molly) Brown - Forthright, outspoken American socialite. Playing age: 44 (f)
• J Bruce Ismay - Self-satisfied, owner of the ship, chairman of the White Star Company. Playing
  age: 49 (m)
• Bertha Mayne - Very attractive Belgian ‘singer’,
  clandestine girlfriend of Quigg Baxter. Playing age: 24 (f)
• Violet Jessop - Pretty Irish girl, First Class Stewardess, previously worked on board the Olympic. Playing age: 24 (f)
• Quigg Baxter - Good-looking Canadian play-boy,
  diamond merchant. Playing age: 24 (m)
• Attorney General - Sir Rufus Isaacs – British, authoritative, incisive inquisitor. Playing age: 50’s (m)

(the above two parts can be played by one performer if necessary)

• Mrs Helene Baxter - Quigg’s mother, fussy, always out of sorts. Playing age: 50 (f)
• Ettie Dean - Working class Londoner, ex-pub landlady, has nine-week-old. Playing age: 32 (f)

(the above two parts can be played by one performer if necessary)

Clever writing brings new insight to the Titanic story. Chris Burgess offers a new perspective on the 1912 disaster by highlighting the class and gender
differences of the time. Everybody knows about the Titanic; the huge ship that sank in April 1912. There have been 28 films about it – including the 1997 movie which broke all box office records. But how do you put it on stage? Chris Burgess’s script succeeds mainly by exploring real-life characters and highlighting the class and gender differences during the period. It is an involving story, directed by John Plews, and the performances are faultless. Aline Waites, Ham & High

It seems, thanks to director John Plews, there is far more historical accuracy here than elsewhere. The characters aren’t dreamed up, they were real people on board the RMS Titanic back in 1912, and even some of the script is taken from surviving documents. Richard Osley, Camden New Journal

This is not a docudrama, although it is based on fact and uses extracts from the commission of enquiry into the disaster in one scene, but a work of the imagination that adds fictional invention that, if Burgess and Plews had taken things just a little further could have turned this into rip-roaring farce as well as a tale of thievery and female exploitation. Burgess and Plews,
who first devised it, have peopled their play with characters whose parallel personal stories hold the interest irrespective of being on the Titanic, though
the audience can hardly dismiss it. When the supposedly unsinkable ship hits the iceberg, the seriousness behind the humour becomes more poignant. Howard Loxton, British Theatre Guide

Small local theatres with big ambitions so often surprise. The play is simple and clever, built around the everyday interactions of a group of crew and a competing set of First Class passengers on the top deck. Iceberg Right Ahead! is an absorbing two hours of drama. It is a play that entertains, informs and intrigues. The ending is very poignant. Shyama Perera, Monkey Matters Theatre

Chris Burgess’ treatment makes the transition from the billion-dollar-grossing movie its title conjures to the stage with reasonable aplomb – he has uncanny ability to weave humanity into the threads of an epic event. Jonathon Watson, The Stage