Theatre Royal Bath
A full sized fishing boat is rolling around the stage. The crew are bellowing out Roll the Old Chariot Along. The other thing which is clearly still rolling is the Fishermen's Friends bandwagon.A juke box musical, based very loosely on the film, which was based very, very loosely on the band's career. The shanty crew in the musical are Cornish, and they sing songs, and they make a record; and they play at Glastonbury. That's about as far as the connection with the real Fishermen's Friends goes. Heart of gold cynic Danny (Jason Langley) has no connection with DJ Johnny Walker who (arguably) discovered the band; and any connection between the story's setting and a place called Cornwall is purely coincidental. Cornish people may call tourists "emmets" but "Old Cornish" is the preserve of nationalists and academics. Half way through Act One everyone unrolls the bunting and starts singing songs about St Piran round the campfire. Someone involved has evidently confused Cornish with Romany, or, indeed, Hobbits.
There are a lot of songs. If you don't like shanties, don't go. Drunken Sailor, John Kanaka, Bully in the Ally, Leave Her Johnny, Pay Me My Money Down, South Australia, Wellerman, Haul Away, are unashamedly present and correct. Less traditional stuff like Keep Hauling and Cousin Jack are also in there. Alwyn (Parisa Shahmir) does a couple of more conventionally poppy numbers, if only to give the audience a rest from all the macho roaring. She has a wonderful voice but its a plot point that she doesn't want to be a professional singer.
The plot is roughly the plot of the movie. The shanty mensing shanties in a pub and on the beach. A record promoter from London accidentally hears them singing, and decides they could make it big. At first, the band don't take him seriously, but they agree to make a demo. The London record label don't take the demo seriously, but a Surprising Turn of Events means they get a million pound record contract. Very sadly, Jago, (Robert Duncan) who started the group, dies before the record comes out. At first, his son, Jim (James Gaddas), thinks that the band can't carry on without him but then he decides it can.
The movie tried hard to be believable -- it was described as Local Hero with songs. The play squeezes in several of the sub-plots, but it feels a little constructed and stagy. No-one actually slaps their thighs, but you feel that they might. Where the film was largely told through Danny's eyes, the play starts with the Jolly Fishing Folk having a good old knees up in the pub, and the comedic townie incongruously arriving and asking for a room. The film had one of his London music business buddies asking him to sign the shanty band as a prank, the musical has him entranced from the moment he hears the singers sing. I felt I had never heard music before; there is a sailor inside everyone. That's probably the right tone for a musical: the magic power of song. Where the film seems to have been set in a parallel; universe where the folk revival never happened, in this version record exec Leah (Fia Houston-Hamilton) has heard of Nick Cave and Fairport Convention, and even knows what shanty-bands are. She thinks the band have talent and the songs are good but doubts their commercial viability. But someone puts one of the songs on That Internet and it goes viral, which changes her mind.
The movie tried hard to be believable -- it was described as Local Hero with songs. The play squeezes in several of the sub-plots, but it feels a little constructed and stagy. No-one actually slaps their thighs, but you feel that they might. Where the film was largely told through Danny's eyes, the play starts with the Jolly Fishing Folk having a good old knees up in the pub, and the comedic townie incongruously arriving and asking for a room. The film had one of his London music business buddies asking him to sign the shanty band as a prank, the musical has him entranced from the moment he hears the singers sing. I felt I had never heard music before; there is a sailor inside everyone. That's probably the right tone for a musical: the magic power of song. Where the film seems to have been set in a parallel; universe where the folk revival never happened, in this version record exec Leah (Fia Houston-Hamilton) has heard of Nick Cave and Fairport Convention, and even knows what shanty-bands are. She thinks the band have talent and the songs are good but doubts their commercial viability. But someone puts one of the songs on That Internet and it goes viral, which changes her mind.
FUN FACT: The Real Fishermen's Friends had played Streets of London with Ralph McTell at the Albert Hall a decade before their "breakthrough" album.
Obviously, the show is carried by the music. The cast don't roar as much as the real Fishermen's Friends do, but they capture some of their stage presence and banter. ("If you have a sore throat...suck on a fisherman's friends.") They banter off stage as well; by the end of the evening you may feel all bantered out. (In London, they go into a what they assume is a Green Peace pub because it's flying a rainbow flag. "We'd better not sing any Moby Dick songs." They end up doing A Sailors Not a Sailor in a mash up with In the Navy.) Some of the songs are cast in a musical style -- that sort of stylised performance where people pointedly sing lines with their chins resting in the hands and everyone breaks out in a square dance without being told to. Danny wins over Alwyn by engaging her with an acapella Sloop John B. There is some skilful matching of song to mood: when Leah tells the band that their record is just not commercial, everyone miserably goes into Got No Work For the Shanty Man.
But mostly, people just sing. There's a proper folk band on stage (including Hazel Askew from Lady Maisery and the excellent James Findlay who's also the musical director). The principles are all in good voice, and Parisa Shahmir is genuinely stunning. It's very hard not to be touched when the news comes over the radio that the first album is straight in at number nine and everyone breaks out into No Hopers and Thieves; and the first half rendition of Cousin Jack is genuinely spine tingling. (They make the problematic third verse [*] low-key and wistful, which is spot on: the real band have been known to make clenched fists which makes me slightly uncomfortable. Steve Knightley generally speaks it nowadays.)
The show seems to believe its premise: that folk music and songs of the sea are not merely a novelty act, but something living and beautiful and important. I don't know what the boys them selves would think of that: they are prone to be quite deprecating about "the tradition". ("If you would like to learn more about sea shanties...you probably need to take a long hard look at your life.")
Never mind historical accuracy: this was a heart warming peon to beer, fish, and repetitive choruses. I don't know if the audience were shanty-fans, Fishermen's Friends fans or merely musical fans, but they lapped it up, and a standing ovation was more or less obligatory. It very much did what it said on the sardine pilchard tin.
[*] I dream of a bridge over the Tamar/it opens us up to the East/the English they live in our houses/and the Spanish they fish in our seas.
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