Come from Away
Phoenix Theatre

WHILE the world’s eyes were focused on the atrocious 9/11 events in New York, Pennsylvania and Virginia, elsewhere there were many fascinating stories of communities pulling together.

One of them is what happened in Gander, Newfoundland, where 38 planes were forced to make emergency landings after the US closed its airspace following the attack, and it’s the subject of Canadian playwrights Irene Sankoff and David Hein’s Come from Away.

Focusing on the hope that so often springs from tragedy — classic musical fodder — the husband-and-wife team provide a heartfelt portrayal of how 7,000 passengers, more than half of the town’s population, were fed, clothed and looked after by locals.

Yet while those left stranded were kept in a sugar-coated bubble, not finding out about the real reason for their emergency landings until some time later, the production at times feels excessively bubble-wrapped too.

Moments of tension are created as suspicions are aroused by the presence of an Egyptian Muslim, raising pertinent questions about the day-to-day prejudice and discrimination against a whole religious group, but that issue remains unresolved until the end, drowned out as it is by the musical’s overriding message of togetherness and patriotism.

Based on the lives of real Gander residents and many of the stranded travellers, there's a heartrending story — and tune I Am Here — about a woman who frantically tries to find out whether her son is safe or not.

And there’s a feminist slant too in the narrative of US pilot Beverley Bass (Rachel Tucker) who was American Airlines’ first female captain and led the first all-female crew in the 1980s. She gets to sings show-stopper Me And The Sky, about her struggle to the top, and how she’s tested again by the new-found crisis she finds herself in.

Those two tunes are something of a blessed relief from the Celtic rock that dominates the music in a show that ultimately suggests that what went on in Gander was a lot more fun than what was happening in the “real world” outside.

Runs until September 14, box office: thephoenixtheatre.co.uk.