Company’s on collision course for a smash hit

9:18am Friday 18th April 2008

THE ill-fated liner may have plunged to the bottom of the ocean 96 years ago this week but one thing's for sure - this ice-breaker of a show is absolutely unsinkable.

It's a modern folk tale and must therefore feature the essential characters. White Star Line owner Bruce Ismay makes for the perfect swine in the capable hands of Ben Leeke, while John Clay's Captain Smith ultimately throws caution to the Atlantic winds in order to satisfy his boss and forces the doomed ship to even greater speeds to break transatlantic records.

At the other end of the 1912 class structure we have Lorna Tipple's Kate McGowan who has found love with Jack Holt's wide-eyed Jim Farrell. Great wealth separates these people but they will all survive what is to come.

Yet the great leveller that is death will soon demonstrate that the works of Mankind are no match for the forces of nature.

A disaster set to music may appear totally incongruous but WODS transform Maury Yeston's score into an absolute tour-de-force. Philip Beeson's direction is a steady hand on the tiller and the pace is maintained by Sheila Bratt's crisp musical guidance. She creates a sense of speed, an apt metaphor for the stokers working furiously in the bowels of this monument to Edwardian industrial vanity.

Michael Staiger gives an impassioned performance as ship designer Thomas Andrews, constantly at odds with the villainous Ismay, urging caution yet powerless to alter the awful destiny that lies out in the darkness.

Titanic runs until Saturday, April 26. Book your tickets and climb aboard - this is one boat you just wouldn't want to miss.

JOHN PHILLPOTT

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