Tag: Jenny Melville

There is a compelling musical somewhere inside ‘The Last Ship’. Its story of a Wallsend shipbuilding community facing the closure of its yard has all the ingredients for a powerful night of theatre, threatened livelihoods, fierce loyalty and the question of what remains when the work that defines a place disappears. Yet, despite its ambition and considerable scale, this production at Theatre Royal Drury Lane left us admiring what we could see far more than we cared about what happened. Visually, it is remarkable, stunning in fact. Jenny Melville’s immense set makes imaginative use of the theatre’s vast stage, establishing the shipyard as both a workplace and the centre of a community’s identity, dominated by the constant presence of the massive ship, Utopia. Adam Bassett’s lighting give...