THE TRANSATLANTIC MAGAZINE
THE TRANSATLANTIC MAGAZINE
Music and lyrics by Sting; Revised book by Barney Norris, from a book by Lorne Campbell, and based on an original book by John Logan and Brian Yorkey
Theatre Royal Drury Lane, Catherine St, London WC2E until October 5, 2026
After a 2026 tour which hit Amsterdam, Brisbane, Paris and even the Met in New York this ship has found a new berth at the magisterial Theatre Royal Drury Lane for a 2 week run with the man himself in the lead.
Inspired by Sting’s own childhood experiences around the demise of the shipbuilding industry in his hometown of Wallsend, Tyne & Wear, in the North East of England, it first appeared on Broadway in 2014 and has since been extensively toured internationally and revised. What emerges is an uplifting and at times heart breaking show which is universal in its appeal. 12 years after it was created it touches the zeitgeist, providing another indictment of the effects of globalization on a tight knit community in a one-industry town.
The first thing that strikes you is the colossal scale. The director Leo Warner is the founder of 59 Studio, one of the world’s top creators of large-scale live audience events, and here he gives us the ghostly silhouette of the ironically titled ship Utopia, whose hull looms over this large stage. The state-of-the-art video projections are operatic in scale and from one moment to the next it’s difficult to distinguish where the image ends and the frame (the shipyard scaffolding) begins. The image, too, of neat hillside rows of terraced houses being dominated by the sight of a single hulking ship would have been indelibly marked on Sting’s memory.
Sting’s songs are exceptional, ranging from soft melancholic mood pieces to rousing folk infused choruses, to stadium power ballads, to numbers which resonate with the rhythms of waltz or tango with an added dash of Kurt Weill. Standout numbers like ‘August Winds’ are rich with moving harmonies which are delivered with great finesse by this large ensemble under musical director Richard John. Sting too has a far better grasp of how songs work in a musical theater production (i.e. not like pop songs) than his megastar competitor in this sphere, Elton John.
He also, rather cleverly, limits his character’s role to a few signature numbers and for the opening night (and a few a select few performances in London) he has as a sidekick in the role of the Wallsend Ferryman Shaggy, who brings a cocky star power and an incongruous Reggae vibe to what is in effect a cameo.
The bulk of the vocal heavy lifting is done by the great Declan Bennett as Gideon and Frances McNamee as Meg. They’re the central romantic pairing – or not as the case may be, as their plotline revolves around Gideon’s return home after 17 years in the navy to find he has a teenage daughter Ellen (Hannah Richardson) who is as feisty as her mother. The show demonstrates again what great talents we have in Bennett and McNamee who bring genuine emotional vulnerability to often under-written roles. Richardson also gets to sing showstopper solo ‘All This Time’ which she delivers like a great 11 o’clock number.
The other plotline revolves around the ailing foreman of the yard Jackie White (Sting) and his wife Peggy (Jackie Morrison) battling the news that the yard is being closed at the same time as he’s hit with terminal cancer. The previous owner of the yard, set up as the baddie here, is Freddy (Matt Beveridge) who is trying to take the site back from public ownership and has an unrequited devotion to Meg. She’s torn therefore between dull and steady Freddy and the eternal rebel Gideon. Now where did we see that before.
Despite all the doctoring the ambition of the piece still outpaces the script, which remains too long, with characters who are often just archetypes, and which has too many plotlines to tie up. There are also too many themes to navigate, ranging from the wisdom of rekindling old romances to terminal illness and letting go, and the politics of industrial warfare. The latter is embodied here by the snarling Thatcherite minister Baroness Tynedale, who arrives to close the shipyard with a TV crew in tow. Cassiopeia Berkeley-Agyepong plays her in full panto mood in a Maggie-like Blue Suit.
In the end it’s a deeply sincere passion project by Sting which has been transformed into an engaging visual spectacle, and which has been warmly received in huge houses the world over for the past decade. It doesn’t need the West End’s sanction.
