Review: The Last Ship, Theatre Royal Drury Lane

The Last Ship has a chequered past. It premiered on Broadway in 2014, toured the UK in 2018 and again in 2020, and now arrives at the Theatre Royal Drury Lane before sailing off to Amsterdam, Paris, Brisbane, and New York. The songs have always been by Sting, but this version has a new book by Barney Norris, from a book by Lorne Campbell, based on the original book by John Logan and Brian Yorkey. Complicated, or what?

Inspired by Sting’s childhood in his hometown of Wallsend in North Tyneside, the musical tells the story of a community devastated by the demise of the shipbuilding industry, and the effect it has on its workers and their families.

The show opens with a bang – well more than one. On the theatre’s vast stage we hear the sounds of welding, riveting and hammering on top of music from the twelve-piece band and singing from the cast of thirty-five – this is not a small production. Then on a girder, twenty feet in the air, stands a spotlighted Sting, looking like the rock god he is, singing and playing the harmonica. I’m not sure he was in character at that point, as the part he plays, Jimmy, later has trouble breathing. 

As the story unfolds, we meet a succession of mostly two-dimensional, clichéd characters working their way through a ludicrous plot. There’s the love interest, part of a couple who haven’t seen each other for sixteen years, with the added complication that he doesn’t know he has a teenage daughter. There’s the union official who shouts at everyone, the town drunk who finds redemption, and the government official, Baroness Tynedale, who’s sent to close the shipyard, acting as a pseudo Margaret Thatcher in her trademark blue suit (this is the mid-eighties after all).

Then there’s The Wallsend Ferryman, a mysterious figure whose purpose remains, well, mysterious. For just two performances, including the night I attended, he was played by singer Shaggy, who received a huge cheer on arrival and an even bigger one when he left, complete with a wink at the audience.

The real star of the production is 59 Studio’s spectacular set, with an almost life-size ship looming over the stage, reaching towards the sky and towering over the cast. Sadly, it isn’t actually there: it’s a superb video design by Benjamin Pearcy and Matt Taylor, but whilst it may not be real, it certainly looks it.

The Last Ship is big, overblown, and at times very pretentious – the well-known Geordie sense of humour has gone walkabout. There are more than twenty songs, with the best tending to be those not written specifically for the musical but previously recorded by Sting. There are too many earnest ballads sung out towards the audience rather than to another character. There’s a germ of a good idea here, but cutting an hour from its nearly three-hour running time (including a welcome interval), and turning it into a more intimate, acoustic folk musical, along the lines of Come From Away or Girl From The North Country, might have given it something it currently lacks – real heart. 

There are two other musicals about the British working class and industrial decline with the songs written by rock stars: Kinky Boots (Cyndi Lauper) and Billy Elliot (Elton John), both of which managed to find humour, humanity and genuine emotion in their stories. The Last Ship has all the ingredients, but somewhere beneath the welding, the shouting, and the earnest ballads, its soul has sunk into the Tyne.

Directed by Leo Warner
Music by Sting
Book & Lyrics by Barney Norris
Musical Direction by Richard John
Design by 59 Studio
Costume Design by Loren Elstein
Lighting Design by Adam Bassett
Sound Design by Tom Gibbons
Video Design by Benjamin Pearcy
Animation Directed by Matt Taylor
Choreography by Rebecca Howell

The Last Ship plays at Theatre Royal Drury Lane until Saturday 3 October before continuing its international tour.