Always on
This project successfully funded on 28th November 2025, you can still support them with a donation.
SHIPS
Edinburgh, United Kingdom
Aim
SHIPS -a new play on identity, class, race & survival. Set to premiere at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe 2026 & tour.
SHIPS
Presented by Chapter Three Productions
Darkly funny, unflinching and thought-provoking new work from Chapter Three Productions, an exciting new Edinburgh theatre company creating bold, character-driven work rooted in working-class voices and lived experience to create theatre that hits audiences at a deep emotional level, work that leaves people feeling more connected to themselves and to each other.
We believe theatre should belong to everyone, not just traditional theatre audiences.
SHIPS is a raw, intimate story of survival, identity and second chances. A psychological drama set in a bar in a gritty port town, where two lost souls collide in a world built on mistrust. Connor, a merchant seaman, spiralling after a violent incident at sea, returns home intent on self-destruction. Alex, a sharp-tongued barmaid, carrying grief and a destructive history, meets him with wit and wariness until a buried connection resurfaces.
Told with dark humour and brutal honesty, it asks whether two damaged people can learn to trust again long enough to heal or whether the tide will drag them both under for good.
Why We Need Your Help. This production is almost entirely self-funded through determination, friendship, and community support.
We’ve assembled the creative team, secured the venue, begun rehearsals, and put tickets on sale, but Fringe productions are expensive, especially for independent working-class artists trying to make ambitious work without institutional backing. Your support helps us pay actors and creatives, cover venue and production costs, support marketing and publicity, build community outreach and create opportunities for underrepresented performers and creatives.
This is not just about one production. It’s about building a long-term home for socially engaged theatre.
Performance Details
Leith Arches Bar, 6 Manderston Street, Edinburgh EH6 8LY
11th – 15th August 2026
- Tuesday 11th August – 7:30pm
- Wednesday 12th August – 6:00pm
- Thursday 13th August – 6:00pm
- Friday 14th August – 2:30pm
- Saturday 15th August – 2:30pm
Tickets now on sale https://www.edfringe.com/tickets/whats-on/ships
Rewards
£25 -Digital Thank You. Your name featured on our supporters wall online and our digital programme.
£50 -Signed Show Poster. An original SHIPS poster signed by the cast and creative team.
£100 -Support a Rehearsal Day. Help cover rehearsal costs for one company member and receive a personal thank-you message from the team.
£150 -Banana Flats Brutalist Model.
Limited-edition hand-cast concrete model of Cables Wynd House created by Spaceplay. Category B listed, the Banana Flats remain one of Scotland’s most iconic working-class buildings, and a central inspiration behind SHIPS. Each individually hand-poured and gift boxed.
£300 -Rehearsal Sneak Peek. Join us at rehearsal for an exclusive behind-the-scenes look at the creation of SHIPS.
£1000+ -Associate Producer. Receive all previous rewards PLUS:
- Associate Producer credit
- Exclusive SHIPS T.Shirt, beermats, stickers
- Invitation to post-show gathering with cast and creatives
Why this story Matters. SHIPS isn’t taking place in a traditional theatre. It will be staged inside Leith Arches Bar, an actual working bar beneath the historic Victorian railway arches of Leith. The audience won’t simply watch the play; they’ll sit inside its world, beneath the old railway lines and be part of the fabric of Leith itself and the streets that shaped generations of working-class Edinburgh lives, and in the shadow of the Banana Flats and in the same landscape immortalised by Trainspotting. We want audiences to feel the atmosphere of the city around them, the sound of glasses, the closeness of the room, the sense that these characters could genuinely walk in off the street.
Leith is changing rapidly. But beneath the new developments and festival crowds, communities carry histories of migration, poverty, addiction, survival, humour, and resilience. SHIPS is for people who rarely see themselves represented truthfully on stage, a story about returning home, can people really change, how do we survive the things we carry and who gets left behind.
If you believe theatre should be honest, human, and rooted in community, we’d love you to come aboard.
Mark Forrest - Playwright/Producer.
I am a theatre-maker with a distinctive voice shaped by the contradictions of growing up Scottish, mixed-heritage, working-class, and Catholic. Experiences of racism, class struggle, epilepsy, and questions of belonging have deeply informed my work, which is rooted in raw, character-driven storytelling that captures both the grit and humour of real life. I’m drawn to stories that expose contradiction, challenge stereotypes, and amplify voices often pushed to the margins, work that entertains while provoking empathy, discomfort, and reflection. My aim is to find humanity within the mess and create stories that move, confront, and stay with audiences long after the lights come up.
SHIPS is inspired by the people of Leith and my own lived experience growing up in Edinburgh’s iconic Banana Flats.
Liam Rudden – Director.
Liam is a Leith-born theatre-maker, award-winning playwright, journalist, and long-time observer of Scottish performance culture who brings a sharp eye for story, tone, and audience, alongside an instinctive understanding of Scottish voices, class, and rhythm. His work is grounded, intelligent, and unafraid of darkness or humour -often both at once. For a play rooted so deeply in Leith, he is a director who comes from that world, understands its shared language, trust, and has a willingness to push the work somewhere honest.
The Heart of the Story: Why SHIPS? I’ve lived in the space between identities -racially, culturally, emotionally and know what it means to come home to a place that never truly felt like home. Partly sparked by a conversation with a former seafarer, he spoke like a man still adrift, carrying grief, rage, and guilt like cargo no one else could see. It reminded me of men I’ve known who couldn’t say, “I’m hurting,” so drank instead. Women who carried everyone else’s burdens but were never allowed to fall apart. Families stitched together by humour, history, and held-back tears.
SHIPS comes from that emotional DNA. It’s about class. It’s about race. It’s about masculinity and how we bury pain. It’s about connection, about what happens when damaged people try, against all odds, to build something that might just save them. This is a story for anyone who’s ever felt lost at sea, who’s ever come home and not recognised the person in the mirror.
Stories like this matter -raw, working-class, complicated love stories. Stories that don’t flinch. Stories that don’t pity or preach but reflect. Because sometimes, just seeing yourself onstage, broken, brilliant, and still trying, is enough to make you believe you can survive too.
Funding method
Keep what you raise – this project will receive all pledges made