I wonder how many people will turn up at Southwark Playhouse for
Titanic the Musical expecting an all-singing, all-dancing adaptation of the James Cameron film? I'm afraid you won't be seeing any high-kicks to "Paint Me Like Your French Girls, Jack" or a curtain-call rendition of "Oops I Did It Again" complete with the bit where the Heart of the Ocean gets retrieved from the depths. Instead, Maury Yeston and Peter Stone's version takes all its characters from real people who sailed on the iconic but doomed liner, some of them staying on to her final destination, others getting off at an earlier, more convenient point. This is a true ensemble piece that tries to build a flavour of all four different groups of people who sailed on Titanic, simplified down to a mostly-American First Class, mostly-English Second Class, mostly-Irish Third Class plus a crew from around the British Isles.
