Sting: Revisiting my childhood for West End show is a kind of therapy

By Laura Harding, Press Association Entertainment Editor

Sting has said performing in the musical he penned inspired by his childhood in the north-east of England is “a kind of therapy”.

The Grammy-winning musician, 74, will make his West End debut in a newly-reimagined production of The Last Ship for a limited run this autumn.

The show is set in his home town of Wallsend, in the north-east of England, and is heavily inspired by his own childhood in the working-class shipbuilding community.

Discussing how it feels to revisit that time in his life in the show, he told the Press Association: “In many ways it’s a kind of therapy, because my childhood wasn’t particularly happy.

“I was brought up in a surreal industrial environment with a difficult family, and so going back there was a little painful.

“But I now appreciate what a gift it was, that I was brought up somewhere with powerful symbolism – a giant shipyard at the end of the street, the river, the sea, the church.

“All of those things were powerful symbols in any artist’s life to be gifted, so I wanted to tell the story of my town in as honourable a way and truthful a way as I could.

“I didn’t want to be so rose-tinted and nostalgic about a way of life that was desperately hard and dangerous, one that I escaped, but I also want to express the pride that community had in what they built.”

The play is also inspired by his complicated relationship with his parents and Sting said he can feel the “ghost” of his father in the theatre during the show, adding: “I learned to love him. He learned to love me.”

The West End dates – part of an international run that has already visited Amsterdam, Brisbane and Paris – follow upcoming performances at the Metropolitan Opera in New York in June, with a return to Amsterdam in the autumn.

He said: “My brother came to see the play in Amsterdam and he was a wreck.

“He knew exactly what we were telling, and I’m a bit of a wreck too, but it’s a lovely, warm feeling of understanding.

“My parents are very young when they had me, they had no idea how to bring me up at all, but now I write about them as they’re my kids, so it’s reconciliation of a lot of different emotional challenges and strains that gets a a catharsis in a theatrical setting.”

Reflecting on his experience growing up in the town, he said: “Wallsend was a pretty tough place to grow up and I was a very sensitive, artistic child.

“So, my strategy for survival was to befriend the biggest thugs in school. They were my best friends, so I was sort of protected.”

One of those thugs has now inspired a number from the show and he said: “I wrote a song about one of my friends who was known as the pugilist, because he was fighting the whole time.”

Asked if he ever returns, he said: “It’s a hole in the ground now, the shipyard is closed now, but I go back to my hometown occasionally, quietly. I go back quietly.”

In the show, Sting stars as Jackie White, the shipyard’s foreman whose leadership is required just as his health is failing.

The show is rooted in the community of shipbuilders, who are faced with the closure of their shipyard – the heart of their existence.

Discussing how writing music for the show differs to writing his albums, he said: “I’m not just writing from my own point of view, here, you know, I’m not even playing myself here, I’m playing a composite of people that I knew.

“I’m also writing for people of different genders, I’m writing for women, for young women, for older women, for people who aren’t me. So, that’s a refreshing change, not to be navel gazing, and thinking, what am I going to write about?

“I’m writing in other people’s shoes, looking at the world through their eyes, and that’s freeing.”

Sting first started developing the musical in 2011, initially inspired by his 1991 album The Soul Cages.

The new production, with songs by Sting including Island of Souls, All This Time, and When We Dance, as well as new material, has a new book by Barney Norris and will feature a company of over 50.

It will run at the Theatre Royal Drury Lane from September 22nd to October 3rd.