Barney Norris, Departmental Lecturer in Creative Writing (Fiction or Cross-Genre) at Oxford Lifelong Learning, has recently collaborated with musician and composer Sting in an acclaimed musical production, THE LAST SHIP.
Inspired by Sting’s childhood in Wallsend in the United Kingdom, and drawing on his own musical roots, THE LAST SHIP tells the story of a community facing the disappearance of their shipyard – the heart of their existence. In a world where past and future collide, themes such as loss, pride and connectedness echo.
As the show embarks on a sold-out run at the Royal Theatre Carre in Amsterdam, Norris reflects on his role in the project and the creative processes involved in writing for musical theatre.
What an exciting creative project, Barney. Can you tell us a little about your role in the production and how this came about?
‘This is a long story. I hope you’ll indulge me.
‘When I had finished my Creative Writing MA at Royal Holloway in 2011, I started applying for jobs in the arts while living in my dad’s spare room in Andover. I applied for 35 jobs before I was offered my first interview; the 36th application was to be the office boy for a theatre company I loved very much called Out of Joint. On the way to the interview, I noticed that the company’s offices were next to an estate on the Seven Sisters Road called the Andover Estate – the coincidence made me feel things were going to work out, and they did: I got the job.
‘On my first day at Out of Joint, we had three shows in production. There was Top Girls by Caryl Churchill in the West End; Bang Bang Bang by Stella Feehily in rehearsal; and another play called A Dish Of Tea With Dr Johnson, also in the West End. Dish of Tea was a mad, exciting adaptation of Boswell and Johnson’s works by Russell Barr, and the cast in the West End included Trudie Styler, who of course is married to the musician Sting.
‘On my first day, I had to help solve a problem with Dish of Tea: there was a cat in the show, which was being played by a dog, but the previous dog had become unavailable. Instead of going to the agency that rents out animals for theatre productions, we thought we could save some money by borrowing the dog of an actress who was friends with our artistic director.
‘Unfortunately, the dog did not enjoy its role, and on its first night had urinated in the titular tea and then bitten Boswell. So we decided to cut the dog, much to our regret. Having spent the day sorting all this at the Arts Theatre where the show was playing, I stayed to watch the show in the evening. At the end I got to meet the actors, including Trudie. We chatted for five minutes, and then I apologised and said that I needed to head home: I hadn’t arranged anywhere to stay in London yet, so was commuting from Andover. At which point Trudie said, ‘I’m driving home past there, why don’t I give you a lift?’ She was heading back to Lake House, the very beautiful place in Wiltshire she and Sting have called home for forty years.
‘I was somewhat astonished – having grown up in Wiltshire, down the road from Trudie and Sting, they had the status of deities to me. Not least because as a young child, my parents only played three cassettes on rotation in the house – Fats Waller, the Ink Spots, and Sting’s The Soul Cages. Once my mum and my step-dad started collecting CDs, Mercury Falling, Ten Summoner’s Tales and Brand New Day became the most played albums in our kitchen; I knew all the words to those songs by heart.
‘So, to be in a car with the woman so many of them were about was extraordinary. I was hopelessly tongue-tied. I did not become less star-struck when Sting called Trudie on the drive back. She mentioned after he’d hung up that he’d been working on some new songs all day.
‘Those songs were The Last Ship, which opened on Broadway a few years later. I followed the show’s fortunes from a distance. Around 2015 I got to follow along more closely when my friend, the producer Karl Sydow, took over producing the show. Karl had been on the board at Out of Joint, and we got on, so we used to go for lunch and I’d always ask him for news about the project.
‘I was a struggling artist then, making work and trying to make a reputation, so I had no designs of ever getting anywhere near working on the show: I just loved hearing about it. In 2018, Karl let me attend a day’s rehearsal. I met Sting for the first time, said something inane to him, and heard that amazing score live for the first time.
‘Then in 2024, Karl mentioned over soup that a new production was coming together, and he was looking for a writer. I felt destiny closing its jaws on me, and asked him if he’d let me pitch. He agreed to send the script over, and said, “if your ideas are good, I’ll send them to Sting. If he likes them, then who knows!”
‘Reader – Sting liked them.’
Have you written for musicals before? How did writing for a musical differ from your usual creative writing practice?
‘Most of my work since the pandemic has prominently featured music – plays with songs and collaborations with composers – but this is my first musical. It’s a very exacting, elegant, beautiful discipline, that’s as much about the tectonic arrangement of songs and narrative units as it is about writing dialogue. I’ve learned a lot about efficiency and visual storytelling from this show.’
What was it like collaborating with Sting, and how did your creative voices interact?
‘Honestly, it’s been the most amazing experience. I don’t know if you’ve ever sat by the River Avon under a blue sky, just you and Sting, and taken turns to sing to each other for an afternoon, but I recommend it very highly as an experience.
‘There were moments on this job when I simply haven’t been able to believe what’s happening to me. Sting is one of the greatest songwriters of all time. He wrote the most played song in the history of music. He is embarrassingly better at rhyme and meter than me, incredibly collaborative, incredibly creative, generous and kind. I have learned so much from him. And I hope I’ve given something back.
‘There was a moment in the summer when I wrote a rhyming quatrain for the show, and Sting took it away and turned it into a whole song that’s in the show now. I cannot tell you how proud that makes me feel – to have contributed to the work of an artist of that magnitude. And I think I’ve written a really good book to his show, too! I’m very proud of what we’ve done.’
What was the most unexpected or memorable moment during the writing/production process?
‘It’s hard to pick one thing, except maybe this: the discovery over the year that I can get over being star-struck and collaborate as a peer with someone like Sting. Because in the best rooms, everyone listens to each other – it’s best idea wins.’
After THE LAST SHIP wraps up in Amsterdam, the show will then tour to the Seine Musicale in Paris, the Glasshouse Theatre in Brisbane and The Metropolitan Opera New York, before returning to the Royal Theatre Carre for a second season in the autumn. Visit THE LAST SHIP website for full details and ticket availability.
