Come From Away is one of the best musicals I have seen for a long time and the audience on opening night Wednesday, August 20, at the Bristol Hippodrome wholeheartedly agreed.

Everyone and I mean everyone stood in unison at the end, arms waving and hands clapping loudly for the most spontaneous standing ovation I had witnessed, it was that good.

Well, what’s to like. For a start a strong true story which invoked all emotions .

Based on the chaos and fear surrounding 9/11 the US shut down its airspace and diverted all planes already airborne to predestined far flung places of safety.

That is how 7,000 passengers and 38 planes landed in Gander off the coast of Newfoundland.

First stuck in the claustrophobic cabins the bewildered passengers went stir crazy before they were eventually allowed to disembark with only their hand luggage and the clothes they were wearing.

Some goggle-eyed because they had drunk all the alcohol onboard or others from watching back-to-back inflight movies multiple times including the inappropriate disaster movie Titanic!

The musical starts with a seven-piece Irish band playing a lively jig and then reveals the many problems of accommodating this huge number of reluctant visitors who all like ET wanted desperately to phone home – only a few mobiles in those days.

Then came the problems of providing shelter, food, basic hygiene supplies while the local transport team was on strike.

Can you imagine Nailsea dealing with an influx of thousands stranded at Bristol Airport although I know most communities have contingency disaster plans in place after Covid not all are confident in arrangements.

Back in Gander there were cultural and language barriers to be crossed as well as trauma of a New York mother worrying about her firefighter son.

Then there was the young immigrant afraid of the Salvation Army volunteers who came to help but because of their military-style uniforms he thought they were ‘real’ not Christian soldiers.

The worse bit was the abrasive treatment of the well-to-do Muslim chef Ali played by Jamal Zulfiqar and the most poignant was an old Jewish man finally felt able to claim his heritage.

Using the bible for an English to Swahili translation to calm an African family was another thinking out-of-the-box moment of genius.

In lighter moment the conversations by the town council and the hilarious bar talk reminded me of an outback scene from Priscilla Queen of Desert. Yep, Gander has resident gays. And wearing yellow sou'westers and kissing the cod was a very strange ritual the islanders shared.

There were many standout performances with the cast taking multiple roles.

Cats star Nicholas Pound plays among other the Irish mayor Claude, soap actor Sara Poyzer as the female pilot, the lonely-hearts couple from opposite sides of the pond, the dog rescuer who finds a rare pregnant chimp and many more.

I thought the show would be all CGI or video playbacks but no, it is a simple static set which lets the talent and energy of the cast shine making this a memorable and moving theatrical experience.

And what was so nice was the lack of glitter and nearly nude dancers wearing skimpy throngs prancing their bare bums across the stage.

I do like Mathew Bourne's ballets but this was seemingly more wholesome even if the subject matter was challenging.

​Okay I’ll admit there was a bit of stereotyping but the characters felt ‘real’