The play opens at an exhibition where one of the visitors is an actor, Lou (Kiza Deen) who is working on a film, The Ghost Ship, about the painter Joseph Turner and his painting where she plays an African woman Olu. Paul Bradley who is the actor Roy, playing Turner in the film, and the artist in Rockets and Blue Lights, in the 1840s. Lou is best known as the captain in a Star Trek type television series and is recognised by Billie (Anthony Aje) an aspiring artist.
The film director, Trevor (Karl Collins) and Lou argue as due to commercial considerations, he wants to cut some of the scenes with her back story from the film. Juxtaposing scenes from the present with those from the past we follow Thomas (Karl Collins) a sailor in the 19th century and his wife Lucy (Rochelle Rose), and their daughter Jess (Kudzai Sitima). Thomas’s story has great injustice. We feel the impact of the slave history on Thomas and Lucy and also on Lou and Billie as memories survive the centuries.
In the theatre programme Winsome Pinnock says that she didn’t want her play to be about the Zong and so I think derives her choice of title from JMW Turner’s other painting exhibited at the same time as “The Slave Ship” with its message of alert and warning
Director Miranda Cromwell gets strong performances from her actors who are often playing multiple roles. Sea shanties are sung in that tradition of folk music tied to the maritime in Femi Temowo ‘s choice of music and the bare boards of the set are flooded for the cast to walk through water.
The play is experiential as stories from different eras are played alongside each other and ideas from the past fuse and collide with the present day. There are times when it is hard to follow as two actors treble and quadruple up on parts but it will make you think about the reality of history in all its ugliness and not as a pretty costume drama like Bridgerton.