Written by Alice Clark

Directed by Laila Noble

Between the recently touring King and I in Edinburgh and now Alice Clark’s Ship Rats docking in Oran Mor as the newest part of the A Play, a Pie and a Pint season (and the Traverse Theare’s Autumn PPP opening), the historical relationships of the West and East couldn’t be more visible to audiences – the latter of which screwing down into the persisting malevolent ideologies and impacts Britain had on China.

As the salty air penetrates the basement stage in Glasgow, the seas are stable, the journey nothing to fret about for this fictitious crew return to Britain through the South China Sea, but when the ship’s captain is found with a sword through his chest, the crew begin to hunt out something a bit larger than a few Ship Rats.

Isolated below deck, in one of the mainly abandoned cabin-holds, Jessie locks herself away from the rest of the crew. Not only is she contending with being the only woman aboard, but recently she’s been as sick as a dug. Her hands drenched in blood, the gore provoking vomiting, things immediately begin with a bang for the show. But now, with a murder on deck sparking a manhunt – the last thing Jessie needs is to be sharing this cabin with one of the ship’s other occupants. Trapped with Jin Hai, the ships’ cook, it becomes clear alliances at sea can be a treacherous thing, but when you’re both at the bottom of the pecking order among the other vermin, there’s no-where to go but up, or in this case, over-board.  

Taken from accounts of Alice Clark’s (Made in China) great, great, great Glaswegian granny, who spent plenty of time sailing all over the world, Ship Rats is a laceratingly insightful and uplifting comedic drama which charters the (still) choppy waters of the West relations with China, and the inherent racism and prejudices which should have sank long ago in the same waters that the British Empire traversed and perverted.  

Jessie thought the sea would be an escape from Scotland, not that she had much of a choice. But her husband, grossly overweight and overly fond of the drink, thought of his many women she had the sturdiest sea legs. Her nausea would beg to differ. Madeline Grieve turns in a blinder of a performance under Laila Noble’s direction, one which captures the blunt, though clever, Glaswegian humour, but it’s a performance where she isn’t afraid to show the scared and vulnerable side. They make for a strong pairing with Sebastian Lim-Seet, who initially has a more reserved performance against the full-gun approach from Grieve, but gradually unfurls and stands toe-to-toe both comedically and in a confident performance.

And though the pair’s new blossoming partnership seems shaky to say the least, they need each other, able to benefit from the one thing the other does not have: one of their only privilege being born a man. The other is being born white. The fact that Jin Hai is Chinese puts him on a lower, revoltingly asinine level than their crewmates, while Jessie’s position as the sole woman onboard puts her in tremendous harm’s way and carries a permanent air of the superstitious notions of women at sea.

There is very clearly a further voyage on the horizon for Clark’s Ship Rats, which compacts so much tightly constructed character, tension, politics (historical and laceratingly contemporary), and narrative, that the pacing could be eased into a lengthier production with relative ease. There’s a whole cargo-hold worth here of interaction and growth.

Though a two-hander, suspense and tension are thick in the air – the knowledge and fear of what would happen if either were apprehended by the crew. It’s a story where even the most pessimistic of us beg for a happy ending. And it’s always wonderful to see a more developed set piece, the atmosphere of the cramped cabin drawing us into the claustrophobic nature more, the lighting working tremendously well to silence the room at the flicker of a lantern outside the door, a potentially violent crew still searching for the killer.

Sharp, with a magnificent storyline and concept, Ship Rats navigates the precarious waters in a way which traverses its antiquated setting and sets sail right into the contemporary. Humour and atmosphere are rich, and though packed a tough tightly into the short runtime of a Play, a Pie, and Pie piece, Clark’s storytelling deserves to be seen all across the seas.