One of the biggest musical theatre shows to grant performance rights to amateurs or community theatre is Come From Away with book, music and lyrics by Irene Sankoff and David Hern. Locally, Zak Scott Productions is the first we will have the pleasure of reviewing. It’s been a professional hit all around the world – why not a community theatre in Long Eaton?
Consider this fictional and hypothetical proposal to potential professional producers for Come From Away: “Well guys we have these ideas we’ve been working on for a musical. Bear with us.
It’s based on the 9/11 terrorist attacks and their wake. It is set on an island called Newfoundland where we have a crazy amount of thirty-eight international airplanes and their passengers all landing one after another and, get this, all of the cast, (it’s quite a large cast by the way), are all very nice people. Lovely warm kind people helping scared people. Thematically, we are thinking kinda unconditional love and human kindness’ mostly being the motivational factors between the characters. Oh, and there’s joyful and dramatic songs. One is about a woman pilot. The song we really like though is the one we’ve written about kissing a cod. So, what do you think? Think it’ll take off?”
Well this soaring production certainly takes off right from the thigh slapping, foot-tapping opening number, ‘Welcome To The Rock’. Zak Scott has clearly gathered together a committed and talented cast.
It’s easy to see, feel and hear, why this show’s so popular with such musical numbers as ‘Welcome To The Rock’, ’28 Hours/ Wherever We Are’, ‘I Am Here’, ‘Prayer’, ‘On The Edge’, ‘Me and The Sky’, ‘Somewhere In The Middle of Nowhere’ and ‘Something’s Missing’. We are taken on a musical theatre rollercoaster ride made even more powerful as Come From Away is based on true stories about real people and their life changing experiences in the middle of world shattering tragic events in 9/11.
This ensemble work hard with what is actually a very complex show to perform and I imagine to learn. Particularly so as everybody morphs into at least two or three characters all of which are clearly defined in the performance tonight. As well as delivering the poignant aspects of the story through acting and song, the cast do well in bringing out the comical nature of some of the scenes and relationships. However, to adjust up to being a perfect production the regular sound and mic issues experienced tonight need to be addressed and made correct.
It isn’t normal for our reviews to have the names of all the cast members and their characters listed but in this case we can’t leave anyone out. Everyone on stage offers such quality acted and sung performances. So here we are, Kirt Hammonds, (Claude and others), Laura Spencer (Beverly and others), Claire Collishaw (Bonnie and others), Curtis Taylor-Tipton (Oz and others), Shantanu Bhumbra (Kevin and others), Adele Green (Diane and others), David Page (Kevin T and others), Joanne Kay Shearsby (Belulah and others) Hilary Lean (Hannah and others), Matt Wesson (Nick and others), Zain Abrahams (Bob and others), and Izzi Parsons (Janice and others).
Come From Away runs at The Duchess Theatre Long Eaton until Saturday 27th September. Tickets are selling fast.
