'Come From Away' at the Phoenix Theatre

'Come From Away' is a great new musical that's won lots of awards on both sides of the Atlantic despite being a bit of a strange beast. It's sort of inevitable that there would be a musical about 9/11 when the Twin Towers in New York were destroyed by aeroplanes and that's the background to this musical. It doesn't deal directly with the attack, its focus is on one of the consequences of the attack that few - if any - of us would think about. That is the closure of American airspace in the wake of the attack and what happens to all those aeroplanes full of people that were in the air and heading for America.

'Come From Away' is the tale of the small town of Gander in Newfoundland in Canada and how it coped with having 38 international jet planes diverted to land in its small airport, how the random passengers that effectively doubled the size of the town overnight and how they were clothed and fed, entertained and finally sent on their way again. It's a bit of an Everyman tale and is populated with characters to represent everyone from the kindly school teacher and trainee reporter on the local TV news to the gay couple from San Francisco and the first female pilot on American Airlines. Some characters find love, some get over their fears and gain in confidence, all sorts of things happen to engage the audience - it is entertainment after all.

The musical drew me in from the opening number with it's stompy, folksy, Irish jiggery of it all, rousing music and vocals, loud and happy. The actors were townsfolk one moment and aeroplane passengers the next, swapping roles on the flip of a coin and belting out those songs, happy and sad, worried and confident. The characters are well sketched and slowly draw you in to their stories like the lad who is fearful that the locals will steal his wallet and who is given the freedom to finally grow away from his family and stand on his own two feet, or the worried mother of a fire-fighter in New York  who frets about the safety of her son. These are all human stories in the middle of extraordinary events. The planes are eventually allowed to fly off to America as the airspace opens again just before a storm hits Newfoundland. Some lasting friendships have been made and the story ends with the anniversary party ten years later with yet more Irish jiggery and bouncing songs.

I loved it. The tale is one of compassion and basic human kindness, a tale of holding out the hand to help someone in need - in this case, a lot of someones in need - and is definitely in feel-good territory, but what's wrong with that?  Us humans can rise above our squabbles when we need to and it would be nice if we did it more often.

The cast were great and it's a true ensemble piece including the band which was on stage the whole time and taking central stage for the final song. It's a small cast of 12 actors playing all the parts and all have an opportunity to shine - it would be unfair to name only a few of them. Well done everyone!