Titanic: Scenes from the British Wreck Commissioners Inquiry, 1912

(Paperback, Main)

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At 11.40pm on 14 April 1912, the RMS Titanic, on its maiden voyage from Southampton to New York, struck an iceberg. At 2.20am the following morning, the ship sank. 1,517 people died.


In response to the disaster the British Government ordered an immediate inquiry and Lord Mersey was appointed commissioner. The British Wreck Commissioner's Inquiry sat from 2 May to 3 July 1912. It took testimony from 97 witnesses.


Full of intrigue, bravery and human frailty, Owen McCafferty's Titanic retells the survivors' stories, using dialogue taken word-for-word from the hundred-year-old accounts. The play premiered in April 2012 as the inaugural production of the MAC, Belfast.

Author Bio

Born in 1961, Owen McCafferty lives with his wife, three children and granddaughter in Belfast. His work for the stage includes Shoot the Crow (Druid, Galway, 1997; Royal Exchange, Manchester, 2003), Mojo Mickybo (Kabosh, Belfast, 1998), Closing Time (National Theatre, London, 2002), Cold Comfort (Primecut Productions, Belfast, 2002), Scenes from the Big Picture (National Theatre, London, 2003), Days of Wine and Roses (Donmar Warehouse, 2005), a version of Sophocles' Antigone (Primecut Productions, Belfast, 2008) and The Absence of Women (Lyric Theatre, Belfast, 2010). He has won the Meyer-Whitworth, John Whiting and Evening Standard Awards for New Playwriting.