A London Word Festival Commission looking at the changing face of the Docklands.

Shad Thames, Broken Wharf is a play of voices that spans centuries of changes across the Docklands, allowing past ghosts to be heard above the white noise of the polemical present.

Set in a pub that has stood on the site since the 16th century, we eavesdrop on a conversation between three characters: Echo, a middle-aged woman who has lived her life in the area; Blaise, a northerner who finds resonances with the more familiar docks at Liverpool; and the gregarious landlord, a Londoner with ‘the knowledge’. Breaking into the dialogue, The Restructure is a sinister, all-knowing Public Service Announcement with ‘advice’ to share with anyone who’ll listen…

“... an elegy, an urban bucolic around the river and its
Eastern banks.”
Giulia Merlo

Chris McCabe was born in Liverpool in 1977. He has published two collections of poetry, The Hutton Inquiry (2005) and Zeppelins (2008), and a pamphlet, The Borrowed Notebook (2009). He currently works as Joint Librarian of The Poetry Library and lives in London and Liverpool with his wife and son.