This review comes from Charlotte Bois-Pursey or @cep44 if you're a twitter user :)
Spoiler Alert: This is a review of Rachel Tucker in The Last Ship and may contain spoilers for some readers.
As soon as I heard that Rachel Tucker would make making her
maiden voyage on Broadway in The Last Ship I decided that I had to sail across
the Atlantic to see it for myself. I then concluded that this epic boat journey
would eat into my show watching time so I flew Virgin Atlantic instead, leaving
me with plenty of time for a Broadway binge.
So since I’d Do Anything to see Rachel perform, and seeing
her in The Last Ship was The Reason for my trip to New York, it’s fairly safe
to assume that this review is going to be fairly Rachel focussed. (The fact it’s on the Rachel Tucker FanBlog
might also have given you a clue). So
let’s get the inevitable “Rachel is fantastic” part of the review out of the
way:
Rachel is fantastic.
On a superficial level, the red hair really suits her and I loved that
her costumes consisted mostly of skinny jeans. She does the best Geordie accent
of the cast (ignoring Jimmy Nail who isn’t doing an accent so much as being
Jimmy Nail) and her singing is, as ever, sublime. I genuinely think that she has the best
number of the entire show in “If you ever see me talking to a sailor”. Not only is the song a catchy tango which
shows off a bit of her belting, but the staging is brilliant and Rachel pulls
off some nifty moves which I can only describe as “glassography”. Her acting is also brilliant, even in scenes
where she doesn’t have much dialogue.
On that note, I may be biased, but I don’t think she gets
enough stage time. And she certainly doesn’t have enough songs. What she does,
she does brilliantly, but I was left wanting more. (I’m not necessarily asking
for them to hoist her into the air astride a broomstick but could they not have
considered a Titanic style moment at the bow of the ship?) In all seriousness
though, there are some moments which I thought could have been enhanced by a
bit more Meg. She spends a long time on
stage in silence as “What say you Meg?” is sung to her. I can see why they chose this to be a solo
but I thought it had real potential as a duet, with Meg’s part voicing her
internal monologue as she reflects on what is being sung to her. Meg also has a huge choice to make at the
very end of the show and I thought this was again crying out for some sort of
gut-wrenching ballad where Rachel could really let it rip. So much so that I was really surprised when
the chorus broke into what was obviously the final number without her having
sung again.
So, what about the rest of the show? The plot is pretty simple. The teenage Gideon
turns his back on the family tradition of working in the shipyards and runs off
to become a sailor, leaving girlfriend Meg behind in Wallesend. Gideon returns
15 years later upon his father’s death to find Meg raising her 15 year old son,
Tom, with her new boyfriend, Arthur. Cue love triangle between Gideon, Meg and
Arthur.
This is all set against the backdrop of the closure of the
shipyard in which most of the men of the town work (except Arthur who has a
fancy new job at the company which wants to close the yard down and open a
salvage business instead). Rallied by the local priest, they join together to
build one last ship, on which they intend to sail off into the sunset For
Good. This is where you really need to
suspend your disbelief. The issue of how they get the funds to build the ship
is dealt with, but it’s really not very clear what they’re going to do with it
(or themselves) afterwards.
There will be inevitable comparisons with things like Billy
Elliot. In fact, a couple behind me noted that it was very Billy and seemed
disappointed about the lack of dancing.
The most obvious comparison on Broadway right now is probably Kinky
Boots. Again, though, that has a lot more dancing and is generally showier than
The Last Ship. I actually saw Kinky
Boots the day after The Last Ship and can honestly say that I far preferred The
Last Ship. It’s more subtle and the humour, whilst not laugh out loud stuff, is
very British. It might not have the
dancing boy or troupe of fabulous drag queens to stand out against the backdrop
of working class doom and gloom, but it doesn’t need them. The thing that stands out is the music.
The set and staging are also really impressive. I loved the pool of water at the front of the
stage and the way they created the ship for the final scene. There’s some very
simple, but powerful, choreography, especially at the end of the first
Act. There’s also a lot of rather less
subtle foot-stomping and glass smashing (although not during the aforementioned
glassography section).
Dodgy Geordie accents aside, the cast is generally
excellent. I was particularly impressed
by Collin Kelly-Sordelet who plays both Tom and the young Gideon. Fred Applegate was also great in the time honoured
role of inebriated, foul-mouthed, but generally loveable priest. Sally Ann Triplett is great as Peggy but I
rather got the impression that this was a bit part that had been created just
to even up the gender balance in a fairly testosterone heavy production. I
generally prefer my musicals to be led by a strong female cast, but I actually
thought this might have been better if they’d dropped Peggy and made Meg a
Meatier part.
Overall, The Last Ship could do with plugging a few plot
holes to ensure it remains seaworthy, but it’s a great musical nonetheless and
I hope that it makes its way across to our shores very soon – with its leading
lady at the helm of course.
