'The Boat Factory' will be out on tour again in 2012. If you are interested in talking to us about the production visiting your venue, please email info@happenstancetheatre.co.uk

THE BOAT FACTORY is a new play by award-winning actor, writer and director Dan Gordon, and based on his family experiences of growing up around, and working in, the Belfast shipyard.

Performed by Dan and Michael Condron, it explores our shipbuilding heritage in a poignant and human tale of comradeship, pride, loyalty, kindness, beauty, skill, craftsmanship, nobility and above all heart. In 2011 the production toured throughout Northern Ireland to popular and critical acclaim including a sell-out run in the Belfast Harbour Commission as part of the Belfast Festival at Queen’s.



2nd of July 1945: World War 2 is in its final throes and the Cold War is about to begin; Frank Sinatra and Gene Kelly star in ‘Anchors Aweigh’ and in Belfast’s Harland and Wolff Titanic Shipyard, preparations are made for a post-war world. Regarded as the biggest and best there is, there’s a power station, docks, machine shops, engine works and saw mills. If you can dream it – they can build it! Painters, plumbers, riveters, joiners, coppersmiths, fitters, burners, electricians, riggers and shipwrights: there were sixty seven different trades and nearly 200 acres of land; 1700 ships built between here and the Clyde and 35,000 men employed at its height. This is their story.

'The Boat Factory' will be out on tour again in 2012. If you are interested in talking to us about the production visiting your venue, please email info@happenstancetheatre.co.uk