Theatre review: Come From Away

Not actually a show about ejaculating from a distance, Come From Away is in fact a hit Broadway musical about the week following 9/11, and the huge impact the attacks had on a place a long way from New York or Washington: In the early days of Transatlantic flight the Canadian island of Newfoundland was a refuelling stop, and as a result a large airport was built there; once planes became able to make the journey without stopping it was left largely unused, except for emergency landings. There were suddenly a lot of those when the USA became a no-fly zone in September 2001, and 38 planes carrying nearly 7000 people were diverted to the town of Gander. Irene Sankoff and David Hein's musical follows the people of the town as they respond to the emergency by trying to make the situation as welcoming for the stranded, frightened passengers as possible when they end up staying nearly a week.

I can't say I've ever wondered what a Newfoundland accent sounds like; as a remote part of Canada I'd probably have guessed a variation on a Canadian one, but if Come From Away is accurate then the accent is actually What Americans Think Ireland Is.

And this Irish influence on the show's location is reflected unmistakably in Sankoff and Hein's music, which fiddles and jigs relentlessly like someone screaming DIDDLY DIDDLY DIDDLY DEE in your face for two hours, in a show that's borrowed Emma Rice's Whimsy Gun in its efforts to deliver the feel-good factor. It clearly worked for much of the audience, who leapt to their feet at the end; for me it felt like a bombardment of twee and I'm afraid I was unmoved. Which isn't to disparage the cast of Christopher Ashley's production, who throw in the demented energy levels required of them, each playing one local resident and at least one of the stranded passengers, as relationships form between them.

Probably the closest thing to a genuinely moving story is the one between local Beulah (Jenna Boyd) and New Yorker Hannah (Cat Simmons,) both mothers of firefighters, bonding as the latter waits for news of her son. More of a cheesy rom-come relationship sees English businessman Nick (Robert Hands) flirt with Texan divorcee Diane (Helen Hobson,) and there's a couple of strong female characters in American Airlines' first-ever female pilot Beverley (Rachel Tucker) and newbie reporter Janice (Emma Salvo,) having to cover a life-changing story. But I was uncomfortable with the treatment of a gay couple (David Shannon and Jonathan Andrew Hume,) who are used a bit too often as a punchline or, later, as a dubious demonstration of how delightfully open-minded the rustic locals are. (It's an open-mindedness that rings hollow considering Hume's other role as Ali, an Egyptian Muslim subjected to horrible suspicion and humiliation in an underexplored subplot.)

I did rather like Beowulf Boritt's simple set design of a wooden revolve taking chairs and tables around to form the locations; it's a subtlety that exists there, in Toni-Leslie James' costumes, and nowhere else in the show. Based on a true story it may be, but it slots easily into a rather patronising, clichéd Hollywood genre about how good-hearted them unsophisticated country folks is - all that's missing is Michael J. Fox deciding to give up plastic surgery. I guess I just felt every moment of this too relentlessly designed to elicit big emotional responses, and as a result it failed to elicit any from me. But hey, at least they didn't do the Riverd... Oh no wait, there it is, they're Riverdancing.

Come From Away by Irene Sankoff and David Hein is booking until the 14th of September at the Phoenix Theatre.

Running time: 1 hour 50 minutes straight through.

Photo credit: Matthew Murphy.