Sting reveals Broadway musical The Last Ship was inspired by encounter with the Queen Mother in a Rolls-Royce

Sting was joined by wife Trudie Styler and actress daughter Fuschia Kate
All smiles: Sting and wife Trudie at the event (Photo credit: Neilson Barnard/Getty Images)
Tom Teodorczuk27 October 2014
The Weekender

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Sting has opened his new West End-bound musical on Broadway ... and revealed it was inspired by a childhood encounter with the Queen Mother.

The singer and former frontman of The Police attracted an A-list crowd including Robert De Niro, Bruce Springsteen, Joely Richardson, Liam Neeson and David Miliband, plus his actress daughter Fuschia Kate Sumner, 32, to the opening of The Last Ship at the Neil Simon Theatre in Times Square.

All together: Trudie Styler, Sting, Billy Joel and Alexis Roderick (Photo credit: Neilson Barnard/Getty Images)

Sting, 63, drew on his childhood in Wallsend, North Tyneside, to compose the music and lyrics for the story of a young man who leads a campaign to save his local shipyard. The musical, which previously played in Chicago, features an Anglo-American cast including Jimmy Nail and Sally Ann Triplett.

In an emotional address to the audience, Sting revealed his debt to the Queen Mother for his first foray into musical theatre. Recalling when she came to Wallsend in a Rolls-Royce in the early 1960s to launch a ship, he said: “I’d like to thank her because without her I don’t think I would be here.

Out to support: Sting's daughter Fuschia Kate Sumner was in attendance (Photo credit: Neilson Barnard/Getty Images)

“I ran past and waved my flag at her and she seemed to see me and smiled at me and waved. She was really making contact with me.

“I was infected with an idea that I didn’t want to be in the street, I didn’t want to be in this house. I didn’t want to be in the shipyard, I wanted to be in the f***ing car. It’s all from her.”

Critics praised Sting’s music while expressing reservations about the book of The Last Ship, by James Bond screenwriter John Logan and Brian Yorkey.

Close friends: Blondie dressed up for the occasion (Photo credit: Neilson Barnard/Getty Images)

The New York Times praised Sting for a “seductive score that ranks among the best composed by a rock or pop figure for Broadway” but The Hollywood Reporter criticised the “cliched situations seen in countless Brit films.”

Despite the mixed reviews, a West End transfer has been set for 2016. Sting’s wife, producer-actress Trudie Styler, said: “We would like to bring it to London”, and Jimmy Nail said “England is its spiritual home”.

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