New show takes SS Great Britain back to ocean-going past

Poet Saili Katebe has written a special piece for the event

The sights and sounds of the ocean are being brought back to a ship that has been in dry dock for the past 51 years.

The SS Great Britain has been in one place since she returned to her home city of Bristol after being salvaged in 1970.

Designed by Isambard Kingdom Brunel, the ship was the first iron-built ocean liner, and the biggest in the world.

The dry dock in which the ship rests is about to become a digital projection theatre.

Bristol projection mapping experts The Limbic Cinema have been working on a short show called The Iron Island, which will see the Grade II-listed dock filled with an immersive light and sound display.

Head of Interpretation and Programming at the ship, Kate Rambridge, said the SS Great Britain still carried traces of salt in her iron hull from the more than a million miles she travelled at sea.

The ship sits in the same dry dock she was built in during the 1840s

"She rests today in her original, dry dock, but she was designed for a completely different environment - the world's oceans," she said.

"Although she'll never sail again, digital multimedia can bring the sea back to the ship and show how she performed in that element."

Limbic Cinema founder and creative director Thom Buttery said the combination of the "glass sea" the boat is surrounded by and the original brickwork around her hull made her a "spectacular location" for the show, which is partly inspired by the original diaries of passengers.

"By augmenting the moving image with the ship itself we are able to create a real sense that the ship is in motion again," he said.

The SS Great Britain sits under a "sea" surface created by a small layer of water on glass

Performance poet Saili Katebe, who has written a new piece of work to be part of the show, said: "The ship carried thousands of people to American and Australia - many of them leaving home forever.

"She still bears the cargo of their stories, so much hope, fear and ambition."