Come From Away

There aren’t many Musicals that feature real people in events that we can all remember, well if you’re over about 29 that is. To be true to the events and the emotions and to bring the story to a wider audience Come From away is one of those few shows, and it deserves to be told well. In the Stamford Corn Exchange on a Saturday night the story and the emotions came alive through word and song.

I saw the National tour last year and hoped that this established ‘dance’ company would draw out the acting, drama and emotions as well as that tour had, there were no worries there.

This show needs no set, just carefully arranged chairs and a few pieces of furniture that were able to represent a Bar, a Mayor’s office etc. A few extra props were used for animal cages and there were several hand-held props There were also a few items of costume to identify characters and to portray different ethnicities. The movement and arrangement of the chairs are essential to the production of this show and these were expertly handled to represent aircraft interiors, coaches, an airport terminal and a raucous bar. Together with a good lighting plot and sound this was a well-presented production. 

There were some well-drawn individual stories of real people nicely portrayed by cast members. Charlotte as the first female Captain, Beverley Bass of American Airlines gave a strong and nicely sung performance. The gay couple Kevin T and Kevin J performed respectively by Aiden and James, two finely drawn characters and Aiden gave a powerful rendition of ‘Make me a Channel of your Peace’ whilst leading the company in that number. The couple who met as strangers and ended up marrying – Diane and Nick portrayed by Becky and Jonathan, this was a good pairing with good chemistry well performed. There was a moving portrayal of the increasingly distraught mother Hannah played by Blaize who was comforted and befriended by the enjoyably friendly Beulah well played by Jess.

The remaining characters represented amalgamations of real people, they too played their roles in bringing to life the actions of the people of Newfoundland. Natalie as Oz representing the Police a good first principal role, the good comedy role of Annette brought out by Abbirose, a strong portrayal of Bob by Megan. There was a strong performance from Kayleigh as Grace. Emily gave us the young reporter in her first job as Janice. Andrew was put to the test as Mayor Claude along with his other roles, he gave a strong performance keeping all the townspeople in order. There were great cameos from Carrie and particularly Glen stepping in at the last moment as Ali.

This is a show that is normally played by a cast of twelve however the director made the decision to have a larger ensemble, this worked well enabling less doubling of characters and making the story clearer. It was a shame that technically the mics were late coming in at times so that first words were missed as technically from a lighting point of view there was a very good plot, well designed. The benefit of the larger ensemble gave more voices and depth to the singing which was particularly good with the harmonies coming through. The show flowed effortlessly and benefitted from the time and effort put into rehearsing the movement of chairs and tables around the stage, the show is mainly serious but with great bursts of humour, the traditional fish kissing scene was great fun.

Well done to Nicola, cast and crew. The fears and emotions of both townsfolk and those who ‘come from away’ was clearly shown, a show that tells the story of humanity to humanity at a very dark time, and for many brings back memories of that day of 9/11 in 2001.

© NODA CIO. All rights reserved.