Sting celebrates his working-class Northern English roots in The Last Ship, the pop superstar’s gloriously scored-and-sung new(ish) musical, now bringing Ahmanson audiences to their feet.

Though The Last Ship’s just-over-100-performance run on Broadway back in 2014 might have suggested rough sailing ahead for any future staging, superb performances and Lorne Campbell’s new-and-improved book (based on John Logan and Brian Yorkey’s Broadway original) have the show in ship-shape condition (if a tad overlong) for this first stop in its 2020 National Tour.

It’s the Margaret Thatcher 1980s, and though the only life they’ve known is in the shipyards, the dockworkers of Wallsend are about to see that come to an end thanks to Thatcher-era anti-labor politics that leave town residents with only two options, accept the government’s offer to rehire only a fraction of the workforce at considerably reduced wages and dismantle the ship they’ve nearly finished building, or go on strike and risk the consequences.

Not that shipyard life has ever been a picnic, which is why young Gideon Fletcher (Joseph Peacock) left both his girlfriend Meg (Jade Sophia Vertannes) and Wallsend back in 1970 in search of greener pastures.

Seventeen years later, Gideon (now played by Oliver Savile) is back in town, a return hardly celebrated by a still peeved Meg (Frances McNamee), who’s raised her now 17-year-old daughter Ellen (Sophie Reid) as a single mum and sees no need to change the status quo.

Book writer Campbell populates The Last Ship with most if not all of its previous quirky cast of characters. (The town priest is gone as is a romantic triangle between Gideon, Meg, and her now non-existent boyfriend, and a Margaret Thatcher look-and-soundalike–Annie Grace as Baroness Tynedale–has been added.)

Characters who remain include shipyard foreman Jackie White (Sting), whose persistent cough is just one reason wife Peggy (Jackie Morrison) has reason for concern; Adrian Sanderson (Marc Akinfolarin), a dockworker with a propensity for quoting Dylan Thomas and the Greeks; pugnacious, unrepentantly heavy-drinking Davey Harrison (Matt Corner); leftist union rep Billy Thompson (Joe Caffrey), for whom giving in means giving up; and feisty Mrs. Dees (Orla Gormley), who’s got plenty to gripe about in the justly titled “Mrs. Dees’ Rant.”

Though not as compelling or entertaining as the similarly set Billy Elliot The Musical (and seriously, how could it be without that show’s irresistible title character?), The Last Ship still has more than enough drama (both romantic and political) and laughter to hold an audience’s interest (though perhaps not though all of its nearly three-hour running time), and whenever the cast raise their voices in song (which is, thankfully, quite often), The Last Ship soars.

An entirely UK-based cast (appearing “with the support of Actors’ Equity Association”) prove themselves consummate triple threats throughout, and that also includes Susan Fay (Maureen Summerson), Oliver Kearney (Kev Dickinson), Sean Kearns (Freddy Newlands, Old Joe Fletcher, Ferryman), David Muscat (Thomas Ashburner), Tom Parsons (Eric Ford), and Hannah Richardson (Cathleen Fleming).

Still, it’s the women who walk away with best-in-show ovations, most particularly McNamee and Reid, whose mother-daughter duet “It’s Not The Same Moon” is a particular dazzler; Gormley, whose Act Two-opening rant is an all-gal showstopper; and White, whose “Women At The Gate” celebrates girl power far more thrillingly than Spice Girls ever could.

Campbell’s assured direction merits its own cheers as do movement director Lucy Hind’s rousing, foot-stomping, full-cast musical numbers and the show’s onstage orchestra under keyboardist Richard John’s adept musical direction.

Design elements are Broadway-caliber all the way, most especially 59 Productions’ stunning projections, ranging from realistic backdrops that morph in an instant from one locale to another to some spectacular animated effects.

 A simply gorgeous score is just one of many reasons to celebrate The Last Ship’s arrival at the Ahmanson, and with Sting getting above-the-title billing, CTG looks to have another National Tour hit on its hands. Though it could stand a bit of judicious pruning, The Last Ship more than earns its standing ovation.

Ahmanson Theatre, 135 N Grand Ave, Los Angeles.
www.CenterTheatreGroup.org

–Steven Stanley
January 22, 2020
Photos: Matthew Murphy

Tags: Ahmanson Theatre, Center Theatre Group, Los Angeles Theater Review, Sting