Review: THE LAST SHIP, Starring Sting, Theatre Royal Drury Lane

All that Tantric sex must do some good then? 

Whether apocryphal or not, that old saw clings to Sting because he looks so good and sounds pretty good a week or so shy of his 75th birthday. There’s that indefinable superstar aura that clings to him, evident from the moment he arrives on stage and ascends to the heavens on a beam. And that’s just the first of a surprisingly bulky volume of Christian imagery in this production. 

There’s plenty of that indefinable charisma beamed out across the fourth wall by Shaggy, who reveals a very fine musical theatre voice in a largely superfluous role for two nights only. He’s a Charon-like figure, a ferryman easing the dead from one world to the other and (metaphors come with a thud in this show) ushering a dying town into a new, frightening world. He can’t resist the odd panto-style wink at the stalls and, frankly, we needed it in a show a little light on humour.

Neither of them can compete with Studio 59’s spectacular set, evoking those black and white photographs of post-war Wallsend in excelsis, its gigantic hulls towering over the terraced streets like a somnolent Godzilla. There’s also more than a touch of Stanley Spencer’s paintings of the Glasgow yards, welders and riveters working in an infernal domain of sparks and fumes in the marvellous video projections.

Rather like a Thatcherite minister sitting out a strike as workers’ families starved, I’m delaying writing about the show itself, now on its third rewrite of its book (by Barney Norris) 12 years on from its first, and docking for the final time on its 2026 world tour. It’s a production that has so much going for it, but, and it’s really quite hard to explain this (I know, that’s my job), the mysterious alchemy that makes a musical fly just isn’t there. 

What is there is a committed and much more radical condemnation of the Conservative government’s ruthless embrace of post-industrialism in the 80s, a legacy that is only now being considered for unraveling, after decades of such discussions being taboo, labelled the ravings of the soi disant Looney Left. Who knew it was the Looney Right all along? Well, growing up in one of the northern hollowed out communities (as Sting and I did) it was pretty clear to be honest. Look out for this cycle to be repeated with Brexit, the musical analysis of which is due in the West End some time around 2056, possibly written by Ed SHeeran.

Sting is anything but so lonely in a large cast that is charged with delivering multiple storylines that push the runtime out to nearly three hours, longer than Hamilton and a fair few operas across the road at Covent Garden. He’s Jack White, foreman of the yard, the wise head amongst the union firebrands - and he’s coughing like a consumptive Dickensian child. Jackie Morrison plays his supportive wife, a role that takes on more importance than met the eye in a crowdpleasing, if not quite historically accurate, denouement.

Running alongside the tale of a man who sacrifices himself to his industry and community is the romance strand, Declan Bennett playing Gideon (not Gordon - IYKYN) who baled out on Meg (a forceful Frances McNamee) leaving her a pregnant teenager, another bête noire of the Daily Mail back in the day. She’s in an on-off love affair with Freddy (Matt Beveridge in an underwritten part) who quite likes the privatisation foist upon the yard, because he’ll get it back into the family with 30% of the workforce and all the communists booted out. Meanwhile, Gideon is being upbraided by his hitherto unknown daughter, Ellen, who wants out of Wallsend and is given full value by a feisty Hannah Richardson.

Interpolating a classic Puccini love triangle into all this plotting and imagery could just about work if the songs were true Musical Theatre numbers, but too many are not. The third Police Man can certainly pen a tune - Richardson belting her 11 o’clock number “All This Time” with operatic passion - and the title number itself a fine song for the chorus. Richard John also gets plenty of swing out of his orchestra, some surprisingly jazz-inflected melodies given full value.

Alas, too often the songs do not move the show on. Fine singers, acting with heart and soul, step into the spotlight, but we’re no wiser after the song about their motivations or their place in the unfolding, intersecting storylines, than we were before the soaring voices and sawing strings. That impacts on pacing (and adds to that bum-aching runtime), some second act numbers reiterating points made before the interval.

It all makes for an evening that is not without its delights, the spectacular set first and foremost and the score never less than pleasing. But director, Leo Warner, can’t pull so many individually strong components of the genre together to build a fully realised, cohesive, very good piece of musical theatre. I suspect that it’s not his fault as, this deep into the show’s history, maybe it just can’t be done.   

The Last Ship at the Theatre Royal Drury Lane until 3 October

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