Titanic - The Musical

This was my first experience of seeing St Mary’s Players at work, and what a great first impression Titanic the Musical was. With music and lyrics by Maury Yeston and a book by Peter Stone, the tragic maiden voyage of the “unsinkable” RMS Titanic begins with an impressive setting of the scene as the crew, and the differing classes of passengers arrive to embark. Act 1 focussed on various vignettes introducing real life characters from the ship with all with their backstories and future hopes and dreams explained, there was an almost uncomfortable innocence of what was to come and Act 1 ended with the Titanic striking the iceberg. Act 2 looks at the aftermath and the fate of the crew and passengers.

This show requires a large cast with the majority having named roles. St Mary’s Players had forty plus performers on stage. It was lovely to see so many men, a rarity in my experience. It seems unfair to single out individual performers as each character clearly worked hard to bring their character to life, with some excellent performances. Some of my highlights were The Proposal/The Night Was Alive, No Moon and The Blame.

Director Steve Woolley managed to capture the atmosphere brilliantly with his set design. The set on two levels with details such as the rivets/ portholes enhancing the environment. The lighting and smaller pieces of furniture/ set all taken on/off by the cast depicting the scene changes. The final sinking was cleverly demonstrated with the moving balcony piece. There were projections up on the ship’s deck throughout, but from where I was sitting these were not always clear to see due to the balcony sides and performers in front. Having the passenger list roll through at the end was incredibly moving, and the fact we only got to the letter E by the end really struck a chord as to how many people lost their life., as did the photographs and candles of the actual passengers. |The lonely figure of Captain Smith at the very end left the audience in an almost stunned silence.

The music is beautiful, but complex and Musical Director Paul Wooley did a wonderful job of guiding the cast. Using orchestration tracks is no easy feat due to the lack of flexibility and overall, everyone remained in sync.

There is no choreographer credited in the programme, but this is not a big “dance” show all movements completely in keeping with the storytelling and the one number “The Rag” was a lovely light moment in the production.

There were a few issues with sound at this performance and not all speaking/singing roles were mic’d which meant I lost a few moments, particularly in the first-class passenger scenes. The lighting design was emotive and enhanced the varying scenes well.

Costumes and make-up were appropriate to the period and class of passengers and crew.

Well done everyone and I look forward to future productions.

These comments solely reflect the view of the Representative and can only relate to the performance seen.

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