The sinking of the SS Mendi in 1917 is one of the greatest maritime disasters to have occurred within British coastal waters, with more than 600 men – mostly members of the South African Native Labour Corps – drowning when the ship went down not far from the Isle of Wight. The shorthand ‘The Black Titanic’ suggests the scale of death but not necessarily the horror: a larger ship, the SS Darro, captained by HW Stump, and travelling too fast, rammed the SS Mendi in dense fog, abandoning the ship and the hundreds of men onboard without attempting a rescue.

SS Mendi: Dancing the Death Drill. Photo © The Other Richard

“This is our lament for the souls of the dead, to bring them peace,” Zamile Gantana explains to the audience at the beginning of Isango Ensemble’s SS Mendi: Dancing the Death Drill, a music theatre piece based on the novel by Fred Khumalo from which the show takes its name. As he speaks, quiet voices emerge from the silence of the theatre, a lament that becomes a crescendo of choir and marimba as actors step forward in a roll call of...