Phoenix Theatre, London
Just thought I should mention to readers how wonderful this show is. I saw it twice before the pandemic, nipped back to a matinee a week or so back. To see if the human magic of it still holds. It does.
It tells, with fiddles and stamping Celtic-Canadian vigour, the heartfelt and heartening true story of how the population of Gander in Newfoundland foibles in size over a few hours in 2001. It welcomed 33 shocked, frightened planeloads of travellers made to land at its normally quiet airport and stranded for days when US airspace was closed after the 9/11 attack. If you didn’t catch it in London in those months before Covid hit, one’s the time.
It stands tall, without pretension, above all the other familiar theatrical shoots sprouting up – and drawing crowds again, and ovations, and the odd tear. It remains a joy. It affirms, in its very particularity and eccentric local colour, the most immense and important generalities about humanity. The very fact that planes crisscross the globe bearing every class and race and temperament and religion altogether and trustful in fragile metal tubes makes it universal.
It is about fear and suspicion and suspense and bickering, kindness and bigotry demolishes, about logistic inventiveness, globalism and hometown. All at once. If you don’t shiver with a tear at the church scene, I pity you. Even more if the wild fiddle tunes at the end and the exhausted triumphant grins of the big cast don’t get you on your feet.
If you can go, go.
atgtickets.com to 12 feb 2022
‘The human magic of this show still holds’: It’s worth going again to see @ComeFromAwayUK at @Phoenix_Ldn, says @lib_thinks. #ComeFromAway #WestEnd #theatrereviews
