Come From Away

Review by: Paul Towers, 19/2/2020

Come From Away, book, music & lyrics by Irene Sankoff and David Hein

At Phoenix Theatre, London: 31^st January 2019 onwards

“not the emotional sob-fest I expected”

On 11^th September 2001 hell rained down from the skies as terrorists flew planes into New York’s Twin Towers and The Pentagon. Henceforth known as 9/11 this resulted in airspace over America to be shut down. 38 international airplanes were forced to divert and they landed at the tiny town of Gander in Canada’s Newfoundland. Come From Away is the story of how this little community dropped everything and set about making almost 7,000 displaced souls as comfortable as possible for the five long days the emergency lasted. Considering that the population of Gander was barely 10,000 this was a remarkable achievement.

On a bare stage with just chairs and a few tables, the cast of  12 bring the entire population of both town and planes to life with each actor playing several roles, switching character and often accents with just a change of jacket.

Much praise has to go to Howell Binkley’s lighting design which is integral to following who is singing. The entire cast sing and move as one as the story flows from one person to another, especially when the stage revolves and you get a glimpse into the life of multiple people in quick edits.

While the back story of the terror attacks is only mentioned in passing there are still plenty of laughs to be had over the different cultures clashing.

Like so many new shows, especially musicals, social media tends to over-hype them  and this is the case with Come From Away for me. I found the story well told by very competent actor/singers, the onstage band were great as was the Celtic inspired music. The staging was imaginative use of a minimal set and the light and sound were great. However this was not the emotional sob-fest that so much online comment had me expect and I found the running time of 1 ¾ hours without an interval way too long. I enjoyed the show, it was informative and entertaining but I couldn’t emotionally connect with it. I am obviously in a minority.

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