BAZ BAMIGBOYE: Cornwall’s buoy band Fisherman’s Friends are sailing for West End

The unlikeliest hit film, Fisherman’s Friends, has set a course for the West End, and is getting ready to sail into the sometimes choppy seas of musical theatre.

It is based on the true story of the shanty singing fishermen, from the Cornish village of Port Isaac, who found fame after being snapped up by Universal Music. Their debut album was a Top Ten hit.

Ian Brown, who signed the a capella group and now manages them, said Fisherman’s Friends: The Musical is ‘an extension of the magic of sea shanties’.

His words are shored up by the success of Nathan Evans, the 26-year-old postman from Airdrie, North Lanarkshire, whose TikTok videos of centuries old seafaring songs attracted millions of views — and a record contract.

The unlikeliest hit film, Fisherman’s Friends, has set a course for the West End, and is getting ready to sail into the sometimes choppy seas of musical theatre. Pictured: The cast lines up in the 2019 film version of Fisherman’s Friends

But Brown saw the future for maritime songs long before they became a lockdown trend. Shortly after the movie was released in 2019, he approached theatre producers Tom De Keyser and Hamish Greer to suggest turning it into a musical.

‘There’s a rich seam of music and heritage connected with the sea, and a musical allows another interpretation of the group’s story,’ Brown told me on Wednesday night, during a FaceTime talk from his home in the New Forest.

Raucous sea shanties, he continued, ‘were the pop songs of the 18th and 19th centuries’.

De Keyser, who studied music, agreed, noting that shanties are built around ‘earworm’ song structures. 

   

More from Baz Bamigboye for the Daily Mail…

‘There’s an inherent rhythm,’ he explained, in songs such as Keep Hauling, the deeply moving South Australia and even that golden oldie (What Shall We Do With The) Drunken Sailor.

They were originally sung to synchronise the sailors’ actions when hauling in the nets, or performing other manual chores on deck. The rhythm and melodies became drummed in over the years.

The show won’t be a straight lift from film to stage. It’s being reinterpreted by director James Grieve and writer Brad Birch, though they have exchanged ideas with the film’s writers Meg Leonard, Nick Moorcroft and Piers Ashworth. 

By the way, a sequel to the movie is in the works, too; with shooting planned to start in March — provided Covid-secure bubbles and protocols can be put in place.

However, it’s not clear yet whether the original cast — including James Purefoy, Daniel Mays, Tuppence Middleton and Sam Swainsbury — would return for the second film, which follows the group’s recording and concert successes, culminating in their appearance on the main stage at Glastonbury. 

Brown joked that the ‘buoy band’ became the warm-up act for Beyonce.

It’s highly appropriate that Fisherman’s Friends: The Musical’s first port of call should be the Hall for Cornwall in Truro. The production will reopen the venue after a £20 million capital redevelopment in the autumn. (Dates are yet to be confirmed.)

It is based on the true story of the shanty singing fishermen, from the Cornish village of Port Isaac, who found fame after being snapped up by Universal Music. Pictured: The cast in 2019

It is based on the true story of the shanty singing fishermen, from the Cornish village of Port Isaac, who found fame after being snapped up by Universal Music. Pictured: The cast in 2019

Following Cornwall, the show will tour and then hope to find a berth in the West End in 2022. And who knows, after that, perhaps it will drop anchor on Broadway!

‘This is Cornwall, giving the world its musical!’ De Keyser said, after observing how shows such as Blood Brothers, Billy Elliot and Everybody’s Talking About Jamie became ‘attached’ to their respective regions: Liverpool, County Durham and Sheffield.

He said that open casting calls would take place in the West Country and London. 

The aim is to keep the show as Cornish as possible, though there will be no discrimination against actors from other parts of the country who wish to audition. So get cracking on the Cornish dialect!

  • For dates and other details visit fishermanonstage.com.
The Rodgers and Hammerstein musical Oklahoma! is being turned into a series for AppleTV+

The Rodgers and Hammerstein musical Oklahoma! is being turned into a series for AppleTV+

Oh what a beautiful mornin’! The Rodgers and Hammerstein musical Oklahoma! is being turned into a series for AppleTV+. 

Director John Lee Hancock, whose new neo-noir thriller The Little Things, starring Denzel Washington, is out soon, is writing the programme with Bekah Brunstetter. 

It will, he said, be ‘loosely based’ on the classic musical, which opened on Broadway in 1943, but will also look at the show’s source material, Lynn Riggs’s 1931 play Green Grow The Lilacs. 

The 1955 movie, starring Gordon MacRae and Shirley Jones, will not be referenced, and neither will Trevor Nunn’s 1999 National Theatre version with Hugh Jackman. 

By the way, that was also filmed in association with the BBC, putting the Australian actor on the road to stardom. 

For the new show, the Rodgers and Hammerstein estate has allowed Hancock access to other songs from the back catalogue. 

‘It’s not necessarily people breaking out in song,’ he said. ‘But sometimes, maybe …’ 

Which suggests that it won’t just be the musical, plonked down in front of cameras. They’re working on the first of the episodes now, and the director said filming would continue ‘hopefully for as long as they’ll let us make them’. 

Don’t miss director Jasmila Zbanic’s film Quo Vadis, Aida?, starring Jasna Djuricic (outstanding) as a UN translator assigned to a base set up as a safe haven in Srebrenica in the summer of 1995. 

General Ratko Mladic’s Bosnian Serb forces are advancing, overwhelming the UN troops and the thousands of townspeople seeking shelter. 

Jasmila Zbanic¿s film Quo Vadis, Aida?, stars Jasna Djuricic as a UN translator assigned to a base set up as a safe haven in Srebrenica in the summer of 1995

Jasmila Zbanic’s film Quo Vadis, Aida?, stars Jasna Djuricic as a UN translator assigned to a base set up as a safe haven in Srebrenica in the summer of 1995

The carnage is wrought off-screen, but the shot of two empty trucks that had once been crammed with men and boys is haunting

The carnage is wrought off-screen, but the shot of two empty trucks that had once been crammed with men and boys is haunting

The story is told from the point of view of Aida (Djuricic) as she desperately tries to protect her husband and two sons. 

The carnage is wrought off-screen, but the shot of two empty trucks that had once been crammed with men and boys still haunts me. 

The picture is the Bosnia and Herzegovina entry for the Oscars’ best international film category. It’s available now on Curzon Home Cinema.