The Last Ship - Theatre Royal Drury Lane Review

Review by Jess

Tickets were gifted in return for an honest review

It’s a tried and tested musical theatre formula: a local community facing destitution due to higher powers placing its livelihood in jeopardy. It worked in Billy Elliot, it worked in Made in Dagenham and it works here. The Last Ship is set in the shipyard of Wallsend, Newcastle, in the 1980s as Thatcher’s heartless policies reach the North East. The retraction of government funding causes the yard to close, and the workers (and their union!) are forced to fight minister and police alike to honour the legacy of their town and ancestors by sailing one final ship. A story straight from Sting’s own heart; set in the town of his childhood, and a homage to this father and grandfather’s livelihoods.

Jackie Morrison and Sting in The Last Ship. Photo by Nienke de Groot

The core plot gets somewhat lost amongst the many personal stories embedded in the show. We have a man returning from the Navy after his abusive father’s death, a tale of two young lovers reunited, a local man siding with the authorities, a 16-year-old meeting her father for the first time, an older couple grappling with a cancer diagnosis as well as multiple smaller side stories. The book has been revised (by Barney Norris) since the last tour in 2018, but the show still feels incohesive and overstuffed. Having so many characters to follow means little time for emotional investment in any of them and detracts from the story of the yard – the reason the show exists.

Sting’s performance is solid as Jackie White, the strong-willed, but weakening-bodied foreman of the yard. His voice is the first we hear as he ascends above the stage on an impressive piece of rising ship rigging. He sits amongst an extremely talented cast, the stars of which, for me, were Joe Caffrey, playing the most authentic-feeling character, union leader Billy, Declan Bennett, as the returning hero Gideon Fletcher, and Hannah Richardson, the spirited teenager Ellen, who delivered the best vocals of the evening. Also excellent were Frances McNamee (Meg), Jackie Morrison (Peggy White).

For some reason, Shaggy was also there (it really was him!). He played his role as the Wallsend Ferryman both humorously and earnestly, but the part itself seemed wedged into a plot that had no room or appropriate context for it.

For the front eighty percent of the show, the set was an absolute triumph. The great hull of a towering ship looms as a backdrop to each scene, with rigs, ladders, scaffolding and moving platforms creating seemingly endless depth to Drury Lane’s vast stage. This level of complex staging is wildly impressive for a touring production. I was later disappointed, though, by some quite rudimentary screen work depicting the workers producing welding sparks on a cyclical loop whilst Gideon and Meg duetted upstage. Considering their use of fire in an earlier scene and their vast cast and chorus, this felt like a cop-out option when the presence of live actors “building” would’ve negated the need for the screen action at all. A screened pan of the length of the ship in its Wallsend dock during the show’s finale is very symbolic and a dutiful nod to the real Wallsend, but as a long-time critic of screens in theatre, I felt it took away from the live, in-the-room power the cast had worked hard to build.

The Company of The Last Ship. Photo by Nienke de Groot.

The music itself, all written by Sting, is a little hit and miss. There are some songs that feel as though ChatGPT might’ve produced something similar when given the prompt “musical about ships” but others, such as All This Time and Underground River, are catchy, topical and full of feeling.

This show is clearly full of heart, not just Sting’s but the entire cast’s, whose talent and attack I applaud for bringing this clunkily-written show to life. It would be an inspiring tale, if the tale itself had been allowed to shine through the distractions of too many character narratives. The show ends on a satisfying musical crescendo, though the audience is left with a slightly unrealistic ending and no overriding moral or inspiration to take away with them. The North East is an underrepresented locale in British musical theatre and I would have loved to have seen the show be used as an opportunity to delve into the rich history of the area. The tokenistic touches of political commentary left me hungry for a deeper narrative to be built there.

The Last Ship, starring Sting remains at the Theatre Royal Drury Lane until 3 October 2026 and it is a must-see for fans of Sting, excellent staging and Ship puns. For tickets, visit https://thelastship-musical.com/ 

Frances McNamee and Declan Bennett in The Last Ship. Photo by Nienke de Groot.