Fisherman’s Friends on stage: the heartwarming story of an unlikely ‘buoy band’

Fisherman’s Friends could be described as the ultimate “buoyband”, said Dominic Cavendish in The Daily Telegraph – a group of grizzled Cornish fishermen who miraculously netted a £1m record deal and stormed the charts in 2010 with an album of time-honoured sea shanties.

Their heartwarming story provided the basis for a film in 2019. Now, it has been turned into a charming if lightweight stage musical – and if you like sea shanties, you are very likely to love it.

The show includes enough of them (almost 30) “to sink a battleship”, and it has a supersized cast of 25 actors and musicians too. “When it’s all hands on deck, it’s quite a sight to behold: the replica quayside set more bustling than St Ives at tourist season high-tide.” What I yearned for, though, was a bit more drama. This is a pleasurable evening, but some “Sturm und Drang wouldn’t go amiss”.

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There is a feeling that this is a story we’ve heard quite often before, said Miriam Gillinson in The Guardian, possibly in more suitable forms. Still, it has a solid script, and there are flashes of “humour and cynicism”, especially in the tension between locals and tourists.

Director James Grieve has “clearly worked hard to hold on to the rough-hewn authenticity” that made the original group a success. The lighting and set design are “muted” rather than brash. And the excellent performances, particularly from James Gaddas as the group’s gruff lead singer Jim, are “suitably un-showy”.

“As a piece of theatre, it is all a bit safe” – but it delivers “earworm after earworm”: this is a show that “knows its target audience” and it “lands them all night”, said Kris Hallett on What’s On Stage.

During last week’s press performance, the weather outside was “doing a decent impression of an Atlantic storm”, said Clive Davis in The Times. But inside the theatre, as we listened to a series of “soul-stirring” sea shanties performed with gusto, “we were, metaphorically speaking anyway, snugly tucked up in front of a roaring pub fire, hot toddies in our hands”. It’s that kind of experience that this “heart-on-sleeve” show offers, and it surely deserves to “pack them in”.

Leeds Grand Theatre; until 19 November, then on tour