Come From Away: simply brilliant in Southampton and heading to Chichester too

Come From Away offers a genuine masterpiece of a modern musical, a hugely powerful and poignant celebration of the supreme acts of kindness which followed so soon in the wake of the absolute horror of the appalling 9/11 terror atrocity.

You wonder how it hasn’t been better known, that immediately after the attacks, a tiny Newfoundland community took thousands and thousands of stranded airline passengers into their hearts and their homes. It’s a remarkable story – and Come From Away tells it magnificently, with compassion but also with humour and with a massive zest for life.

The gist is that with US airspace closed, three dozen planes were diverted to a huge but unused airfield next to the tiny Newfoundland town of Gander. 7,000 passengers from all around world effectively doubled its population. The response from the locals was to do everything they possibly could – and more – for stressed strangers, lonely, scared and very, very far from their own homes.

Olivier Award-winning writers Irene Sankoff and David Hein chanced upon the story – and Come From Away is the result, the most glorious celebration imaginable of community, of decency and of the endless reach of simple kindnesss. 9/11 was a tale of atrocious brutality. Come From Away reminds us that it also brought forth heroism of every single shade.

An ensemble cast plays the locals; the same cast plays the incomers; but the show is at its best when we get them all mixing, their individual stories unfolding – the mayor, the local news reporter, the female captain, the couple whose relationship feels the strain, the strangers who become an item… It’s all brought compellingly to life by superb performances across the board – and wrapped up stunningly in a terrific set of songs which range in emotion as freely as the people singing them do. It’s not a show about two or three big names; what makes it so moving is that it is a tale about a group of people meeting another group and finding so very much between them.

And the terrific news is that it will be coming to Chichester Festival Theatre from November 18-23. Tickets for the Chichester dates will go on sale with the winter season in September.