Third Class: A Titanic Story

03 Apr 2025

Shakespeare North Playhouse

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A one-man theatre show based on the life of Titanic survivor, Edward Dorking.

“The White Star Line merged itself out of existence. Those clever little educated boys.”

Edward was gay. Openly gay, and on Wednesday, April 10th, 1912, he set sail for NYC on a ticket bought for him by his parents in the hope his American family could put him ‘right’.

Third Class charts Edward’s journey from boarding the Titanic to swimming for 30 minutes towards an already full collapsible lifeboat and how he, upon arriving in New York, would tour the Vaudeville circuit, recreating the stories for a fact-hungry public.

But Edward didn’t want fame; he wanted revenge. When everyone was talking about the deaths of millionaires and society figures, few were discussing the people who took the lion’s share of the losses that night: the third class.

Using music, movement, projection, and historical facts, Third Class tells the story of an unknown hero from a well-known story.