Sting's Musical Tribute to
the Death of Shipbuilding on Tyneside
“I learned by doing everything wrong.”
Gideon
Long awaited in London is Sting’s musical The Last Ship. I was privileged to be invited to the last of two shows starring the American rap artist Shaggy and yes, I am thrilled to have seen and heard him in the role of The Wallsend Ferryman. He has an amazing stage presence and his reggae styled songs are a highlight.
The background of The Last Ship is the decline of shipbuilding in the UK in the Thatcher ruled 1980s, and in particular in Wallsend on Tyneside in Northumberland which is where Sting was born and spent his childhood. Sting plays Jackie White the foreman of the shipyard workers who has lung cancer and as he sees his life force diminishing, so too does he see the shipyard dying.
Parallel with the story of the shipbuilders is that of Gideon (Declan Bennet) who left the area is his late teens 17 years ago and now returns for his father’s funeral. He went to work at sea. He finds that he has an almost grown up daughter Ellen (Hannah Richardson) about whom her mother Meg (Frances McNamee) never told him. Meg runs the local pub and is being courted by a shipyard manager Freddy (Matt Beveridge).
The musical has almost all new songs but at 25 separate tunes, there is little to remember on first hearing. Ideally one should be familiar with the album to get the most out of this musical or some tunes could have been repeated in the manner of Les Miserables so they have stuck by the end of the first showing. It is all very well sung but with it also only running until 3rd October, there is something fleeting and transitory about it.
This is such a shame because the shipyard set along with video and projection are some of the best staging I have ever seen. There is scaffolding and gantries, steel surrounds and fencing closing off the one last ship named the Utopia. At the height of the work we see the welding works as sparks and bursts of light with the full impact of industrialised engineering sound. The hull of the ship itself is magnificent and the lighting changed for this blue lit ship to become flaming red. We see too the surrounding houses of the town in relief.
Too often during the scenes I felt I was too far away, even in Row M in the stalls, and I wondered whether close up screens would have been more involving. For instance, when he first appeared, I couldn’t be sure that it was Sting the audience were giving an entrance clap to.
What is never in question is the dedication Sting has put towards this project and of course I have to assume that he has funded much of it, himself. His lyrics are intelligent, if occasionally cliché ridden and there is obvious sincerity in the depiction of an area with its employment heart torn out of it.
There is a strong scene of women backing their men as Peggy White (Jackie Morrison), wife of the foreman organises a picket of women to challenge the police being sent in to block the men working on the ship in their own time . There has been much rewriting of the Book of the musical, which was originally written by John Logan and Brian Yorkey, and later revised, first by Lorne Campbell and then by Barney Norris but it still needs focus.
I think I might buy the album to get familiar with the range of Sting’s music written for this show, much of it folk in style. Maybe there will be another opportunity to see it with a smaller, more cost effective cast?
Musical Numbers
Act One
Overture
Island of Souls
And Yet
August Winds
Practical Arrangement
Shipyard Ship Of State
If You Ever See Me Talking To A Sailor Underground River
Dead Man’s Boots
The Night That The Pugilist Learned How To Dance Ferryman’s Souls
Act Two
Nowt Else
It’s Not The Same Moon
So To Speak
That’s All That I’m Telling You Son
We Build Ships
What Say You Meg
I Love Her But She Loves Someone Else
The Last Ship (reprise)
Hadaway
Ghost Story
All This Time
Underground River (Reprise)
When We Danced
Women At The Gate
Show Some Respect
The Last Ship (finale)
Production Notes
The Last Ship
Music, Lyrics and Created by Sting
Directed by Leo Warner
Cast
Starring:
Adam Strong
Cassiopeia Berkeley-Agyepong
Declan Bennett
Duane Gooden
Frances McNamee
Jackie Morrison
Joe Caffrey
Matt Beveridge
Lejaun Sheppard
Hannah Richardson
Shaggy
Creatives
Director: Leo Warner
Choreographer: Rebecca Howell
Set Designer: Jenny Melville
Design by 59 (a Journey Studio)
Costume Designer: Loren Elstein
Musical Supervisor and Orchestrator: Richard John, Rob Mathew
Lighting Designer: Adam Bassett
Sound Designer: Tom Gibbons
Video and Projection: Benjamin Pearcy,
Design By 59 (a Journey Studio), Matt Taylor
Information
Running Time: Two hours 50 minutes with an interval
Booking until 3rd October 2026
Theatre:
Theatre Royal Drury Lane
Catherine Street
London WC2B 5JF
Box Office: 020 7557 7300
Website: https://thelastship-musical.com/
Tube: Covent Garden
Reviewed by Lizzie Loveridge
at the Theatre Royal Drury Lane at the performance
on 23rd September 2026
