Titanic The Musical – a story of ambition, hope and tragedy (Grand Opera House until Saturday 8 April)

Given the three classes of passengers and the hierarchy between ship’s crew up on the bridge, serving the passengers, and those seven decks below sweating it out in the boiler room, there’s plenty of scope for drama. Nearly too many layers of privilege, though one second-class passenger provides an enormously entertaining gossipy commentary as she observes those who paid significantly more for their tickets.

Titanic The Musical is back in town, having toured through Belfast back in 2018. Most of my observations in the original review still stand.

What I noticed on Tuesday night was that the musical was stuffed full of people with aspirations, steaming towards success, happiness and fulfilment. Alice (Bree Smith) aspires to be upper class. Lady Caroline (Emma Harrold) longs to marry the man her father so disapproves of. Kate McGowan (Lucie-Mae Sumner) dreams of regular employment in America and a man with which to share her life. Boiler Stoker Barrett (played in last night’s performance by Luke Harley) desires to spend more time with his girlfriend back home and less shovelling coal into the ship’s boilers.  J. Bruce Ismay (Martin Allanson) wants the Titanic to cross the Atlantic faster on its maiden voyage than the Cunard liners. Captain Edward Smith (Graham Bickley) just wants to finish the trip and retire. Some aspirations are wholesome, others drive characters and those around them to make poor decisions with tragic consequences.

Maury Yeston’s melodies are sweeping, and the complex layering of harmonies suits the versatile voices of the 25-strong cast. The musical was first performed in the city that built the Titanic by the Belfast Operatic Society. It’s definitely a more operatic style of musical theatre than most of the shows that tour through Belfast. And the six-piece band – strong quartet, keyboard and percussion – craft the emotional tone of every scene.

This latest tour is travelling with a much more conventional PA system which performs more stably, though it has lost the overwhelming bass rumble at the moment of the collision. Opening night issues delayed the start of the show by 20 minutes and there were teething problems at regular intervals with a number of performers’ mics staying noticeably muted when it was their turn to voice key lines of dialogue. A reminder that modern musical theatre is highly complex and the technology and show automation can leave the performers high and dry.

Godspeed Titanic is the most powerful melody, and its apt reprise follows a remarkably respectful tribute to all those who lost their lives when the Titanic sunk. The willingness to embrace sadness and honour the dead is a strength of this production which never tries to glamorise the tragedy or simplify the characters into one dimensional plot devices. The lyrics and Peter Stone’s book are full of factoids. Learning that the bellboys on board – they all drowned – were typically only 14 years old is quite a shock.

Act Two’s The Blame sees the owner, the designer (Thomas Andrews played by Ian Mclarnon) and the captain squaring up to each other, though somewhat shockingly it’s another member of the crew who feels he should take the ultimate responsibility. Historians and Titanoraks can debate whether Ismay was really the villain he is portrayed to be. However, fingerpointing is quickly forgotten when faced with the raw humanity and unending commitment as co-owner of Macy’s department store Isidor Straus (David Delve) and his wife Ida (Valda Aviks) sing Still.

While Thomas Andrew’s accent is the only obviously Northern Irish aspect of the production, director Thom Southerland takes the script and songs and fashions a story of ambition, hope and tragedy that sits well with the local sensibility and understanding about the Titanic’s maiden voyage. Titanic The Musical is run in the Grand Opera House finishes on Saturday 8 April.

Photo credit: Scott Rylander

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