The Boat Factory – free tickets for blog readers to the world première on 5 October

Update - my tickets have all gone for now! There may be more available if you contact 028 9045 1512.

2nd of July 1945. The sun shines down on a post-war world. A 16 year-old boy walks through the gates of Belfast’s Harland & Wolff Titanic Shipyard.

1700 ships built between here and the Clyde, 67 different Trades, 300 acres of land and 35,000 men employed at its height. Regarded as the biggest and best there is, if you can dream it – they can build it.

This is history - this is his story - this is The Boat Factory.

Westbourne Presbyterian Community Church – better known in East Belfast as The Shipyard Church – is celebrating its 130th anniversary in October 2010. As part of a programme of activities, they’re staging the world première of Dan Gordon’s play The Boat Factory in the church at 7.30pm on Tuesday 5 October. (You can be assured that Dan Gordon's character Red Hand Luke from Give My Head Peace won't be appearing in the play!)

I’ve a number of free tickets for the first night, available to blog readers who get in touch (email address is up in the top right hand corner of the blog) and can guarantee they’ll be able to attend. (The theatre company and church are both keen that the first staging plays to a full house … and free tickets sometimes get discarded!)

Drop me your details and how many people you're bringing and I’ll post out (snail mail) the tickets. Think of it as an AiB cultural meet-up! Some folk might even want a bite to eat beforehand ...