Titanic – Charing Cross Theatre Until 6th August

“Rarely do I have goosebumps during the opening number nor do I almost weep at the shear immensity of the piece before me, but I have to say that this musical did just that and continued throughout.”

Now I am not going to bore you with recounting the story of the Titanic as you all know that, but in case you don’t “spoiler alert” they do not rewrite history of the ill-fated ship here!

This isn’t going to be a staggeringly long review as this musical needs to be seen for yourself not through the words of someone like me. I will however bring some highlights for you. With such rousing songs as “Godspeed Titanic” delightfully decadent “Doing The Latest Rag” with its divine choreography, and the hauntingly sorrowful “We’ll Meet Tomorrow” there is something here for everyone, all masterfully musically directed by Joanna Cichonska. The wonderful music and lyrics are by Maury Yeston and new musical arrangements are by Ian Weinberger

The entire cast deserve individual mentions but in order to keep you as short as possible so that you can buy that all important ticket here are just a few mentions. Helena Blackman, Scarlett Courtney, Claire Machin, Peter Prentice, Sion Lloyd, Kate McGowan and Niall Sheehy whose voices were rich, strong and strikingly magnificent in their pitch and clarity. The score in this musical if not controlled or dissected could be underwhelming but this is not the case here. It grabs you and soars you into the highest heights and plummets you from them into depths of despair. Crescendos which leave you breathless by their delivery. The band perfectly compliments this talented cast and underpins this production.

This is Thom Southerland‘s first show in his reign as Artistic Director at Charing Cross Theatre and what a glorious way to start. If this is just the taste of things to come I cannot wait. He masterfully directs this sublimely talented cast and extracts every last drop from them to deliver an utterly stupendous show.

At the start of this review I made comment that I wouldn’t go into depths of the story but what struck me as one of the most breathtaking and poignant scenes was the memorial wall where “the survivors” stood with their backs to the audience clearly stating facts about the tragedy. A few I wrote down which were mind-blowing in their gravitas – there were four hundred and fifty empty seats in the lifeboat’s – just seven hundred and eleven people saved – a staggering fifteen hundred and seventeen perished in the tragedy. Was it all one person’s greed to be the fastest or to be the best and own an unsinkable palace on the sea?

It is a story about the classes and what you could afford to pay – the first class passengers were the first to board the lifeboats whilst the third were locked below decks left to drown without thought. A sobering moment and made me think, thank goodness that life has moved on and we no longer are so class conscious or thoughtless of our fellow human beings.

This musical has it all a magnificent cast, a wonderful score, exquisite costumes and an important story to tell. Now I’ve kept you reading for far to long, so please the listings are below, it is a short ten week run, give yourself a treat and go and book tickets for the musical of the season now!