51�Թ�

On New Year's Day in 1908, explorer Ernest Shackleton's British Antarctic Expedition aboard the ship Nimrod set sail from Lyttelton, New Zealand, on a quest to be the first to set foot on the South Pole.

Soon renamed after the town it served, the tug is still there, lovingly cared for by the volunteers of the Tug Lyttelton Preservation Society.

The steam tug Canterbury, built in 1907 for £14,126 and 10 shillings, was soon making a 69-day journey via the Suez Canal to Lyttelton, New Zealand, to serve as the port's tug, pilot boat and fireboat.

An audience in the National’s Lyttelton Theatre is left riled up, torn up and dazed.

The Motive and the Cue is at the National Theatre: Lyttelton from 20 April to 15 July.