In only its second voyage, QPAC’s new Glasshouse Theatre has found its sea legs in Sting’s epic The Last Ship.
There are some shows where you walk out talking about the performances, some where you talk about the music, and some where you spend half the interval staring at the stage trying to work out how on Earth they even built the thing.
The Last Ship very much belongs in that last category. As only the second major show to anchor itself inside QPAC’s dazzling new Glasshouse Theatre, this Australian exclusive production doesn’t just use the space; it practically stress-tests it. And my word, what a way to do it.
For a venue still enjoying that new theatre smell, The Last Ship lets the Glasshouse show off in all its radiant brilliance. The set is enormous. Properly enormous. Without a tape measure on hand, I’d still happily wager the LED wall stretching across the back of the stage had to be somewhere in the realm of 30 metres wide and almost as high.
It is one of the most striking scenic elements I’ve seen in a musical for quite some time, and it gives the whole production an immediate sense of scale. The shipyard world it creates is cold, industrial and beautifully oppressive, with chains, scaffolds, and steel framing the stage like a working construction zone.
At centre stage, even the floor seems to join the cast, rising up as a sculptural lighting piece that gives the production yet another visual trick to play. It is a massive, muscular theatre. And thankfully, this is a show with enough weight to match it.
The Last Ship comes to Brisbane carrying a lot more than just Sting’s name above the title. The story is rooted in the shipbuilding community he grew up in, the people and place that helped shape him long before the stadium tours and platinum records.
It has had many lives on its way here, having been written and reshaped over time by John Logan and Brian Yorkey, then Lorne Campbell, and more recently Barney Norris, before arriving in this stage musical form with Sting’s own music and lyrics sitting at its heart.
That sense of lived-in history matters because The Last Ship does not feel like a manufactured musical designed by committee. It feels personal. Rugged. A little weather-beaten, in the best possible way.
Brisbane now joins New York, Paris and Amsterdam as one of the only homes for this expansive production, and it feels like exactly the kind of ambitious work this venue was built to hold. This is not a small, tidy musical. It is a full-bodied theatrical event.
I’ll admit, it was not quite the show I expected. Going in with Sting’s catalogue hovering in the back of my mind, I was anticipating something with a bit more rock pulse to it. A bit more drive. A bit more forward propulsion.
Instead, The Last Ship is a slower-moving beast. It unfolds gradually. Deliberately. And with far more patience than I usually claim to have.
As my parents, who sat beside me, would happily tell you, I was not born to be a still human being. If I am not constantly stimulated, my brain kicks into overdrive and starts behaving like that over-caffeinated squirrel from Over the Hedge.
But as slow as it may be, it moves like a giant, steel-hearted beast. Slow and imposing, but impossible to switch off from.
That is because even when the story itself moves at a gentler pace, the production around it never stops evolving. There is always something shifting. Scaffold glides and towers overhead. Light deepens and redraws the emotional landscape. The LED wall morphs and breathes like a character in its own right, constantly reshaping the world before your eyes.
It is a production that understands momentum does not always have to come from pace. Sometimes it comes from scale, tension, and atmosphere. This show has all three.
It also has the rare quality of feeling less like a collection of standout parts and more like one giant, unified machine. Normally, I’d happily single out direction, lighting, sound, costumes, video design or set and break down which element did what best.
Here, that almost feels like missing the point. The Last Ship operates as one vessel. A huge one, built with such detail and force that you find yourself admiring the entire thing rather than any one bolt holding it together.
That same feeling carries through the cast. While Sting’s name is on every poster, and Shaggy headlines the marketing materials, it isn’t a show built around one or two stars doing the heavy lifting. It is communal, with every performer pitching in with maximum effort, which suits the material perfectly.
Sting, of course, arrives with nearly fifty years of performance legacy behind him, and there is a grounded confidence in his presence that the show leans on well. Having lived a few lives on stage already, he doesn’t need to overplay anything. He holds onto that quiet authority of someone who you know is going to deliver, regardless.
I did find myself wanting more from Shaggy, though, whose presence was more emblematic than vocal. Hiring such a drawcard music icon and then barely letting them sing seems like it should be a criminal offence! Don’t get me wrong, he certainly added to the world of the piece, but a background extra is not what I want from Mr Lover Lover!
Speaking of vocals, though, the production is in very safe hands with Declan Bennett as Gideon, Annette McLaughlin as Peggy, Lauren Samuels as Meg and Hannah Richardson as Ellen. Between them, they provide the main vocal force of the evening, and faultless is not too strong a word.
There is strength, soul and grit in their work, and each of them helps ground a production that could otherwise risk being swallowed by its own size.
What truly makes this whole thing sail through, is that it never tries to rush itself into being something it isn’t. It trusts its own rhythm. It trusts its world. And it trusts that you give yourself over to it. The Last Ship is not in a hurry, and that is exactly why it works.
By the final bows, it had done something I did not entirely expect. It won me over, not through speed or by being overtly boombastic, but through sheer scale, confidence and cohesion.
The Last Ship is not the flashiest musical I’ve ever seen, nor the fastest, but it may well be one of the most impressively built. In a theatre still introducing itself to Brisbane, this production feels like a statement of intent.
And what a statement it is.
The Last Ship runs to 3 May at the Glasshouse Theatre QPAC in an exclusive Brisbane season.
Tickets: https://qpac.n.qtix.com.au/tickets/series/thelastship26
Website: https://www.qpac.com.au/whats-on/2026/the-last-ship
Socials: https://www.instagram.com/atqpac/ and https://www.instagram.com/lastshipmusical/
Hero image: Pixeline Photographie
